Stupa Trading
Stupa Trading
Stupa Trading Story
Fleeing from Tibet at the age of 12 with little schooling and no money, Pema-la Lama struggled to settle herself in to her new country of Nepal. A refugee there, she taught herself to read and write in Nepali and learned how to knit and sew, all the while caring for 6 younger siblings and tending to a father dying of cancer. In 1984 she lived with her husband Namgyal , also a Tibetan refugee, who fled when he was one, and their baby daughter, Chimi in a small room in Kathmandu with no water, bathroom or kitchen. They supported themselves with sales from a small shop where they sold bags and knitwear that they made.
As we came to know Pema-la and Namgyal we quickly learned that as Tibetan refugees they had little help from the Nepalese government and that to survive they needed to make their own way. They wanted to partner with us to create a business that would support them, their young family and their dreams. They recongized the need to educate their children and give them skills. They wanted their educated children to become ambassadors to the world and expose the brutal takeover of their country by the Chinese. As Tibetan Buddhists they wanted to pursue their path with compassion and respect for others. Ric and I wondered, as we heard their stories, how we could work together to help make their dreams reality. They were one of the inspirations for us beginning our own venture into Fair Trade and creating Ganesh Himal Trading.
Since 1984 we have worked together with Pema-la and Namgyal as families, friends and business associates to develop businesses that work to benefit all involved. Pema-la has worked harder than almost anyone we know to create this reality. From their humble beginnings, she and her husband have built a strong fair trade business that has helped send their three daughters to good schools and improve the lives of many others. They have set an example of how a successful business can be run with compassion at its core.
In February of 2007, more than 20 years after our first meeting, Pema-la and I sat and reflected on what they have done. Here is more of their story.
As their business grew Pema-la needed to bring other tailors and knitters in to help. She worked side by side with people who had been dispossessed to help create meaningful and profitable work for them. Men like Durba Pariyar who was no longer able to support his family through his small sewing shop. Pema-la asked him to become her master tailor and taught him cutting and patterning. When he wanted to provide work to young men in his village she brought those young men to Kathmandu and taught them to sew. When they had all worked together as a good team she set up a profit sharing plan for all of them so that as the business grew they would all benefit. This profit sharing plan gave them all a voice in the decision making process and a percentage of the profits. It was the first example of its kind in the Kathmandu Valley. When the Maoists came into Kathmandu during the early 2000’s demanding that workshops be closed because owners were not present, Pema-la’s group told them they couldn’t close their workshop because they were all owners. Their workshop was one of the few that was allowed to remain open.
Pema-la and Namgyal have not stopped there. As the Nepalese countryside was ripped apart with civil war they reached out to village women who had been widowed in the conflict. As women fled to the cities to escape the fighting, some were given shelter by a friend of Pema-la’s in Nepalgunj. There they had shelter and food but no work. Pema-la heard of their plight and brought 10 of these women to Kathmandu and put them up in a hotel and gave them a month-long intensive training course in knitting. These women then returned to the shelter and taught others to knit. They are now making many of the knit socks, hats and other knit accessories which Pema-la provides to us at Ganesh Himal Trading.
Early in our business together Namgyal-la taught himself the intricacies of cargo freight forwarding so that we could all avoid the graft and corruption of existing shipping agencies. Over the 20+ years we’ve worked together he has grown this cargo company into one of the best and most respected frieght companies in Nepal.He was so well respected for his work and dedication that he was elected as the head of Nepal’s Freight Forwarding Association and as such brought forward the need to treat all workers within the cargo arena with care and respect. As head of the Freight forwarders association he even locked high government officials out of their offices when these officials denied the cargo porters needed work just because the officials wanted the day off. His work with government officials to promote trade and graft free shipping won him the “Civil Voice for Peace and Development “ Award in 2006. He was thrilled to have been handed this by the Prime Minister himself.
