1. WHAT IS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE?
A social enterprise has the same mission as an NGO: to help people. The difference is that social enterprises do not depend on donations. We have to make it on our own. We do not want a donation from you, we want to provide you with a product or a service and be paid a fair price for it. We are proud to be able to produce quality goods and services that are appreciated by our customers.
All Bloom profits go to our Khmer staff and to growing Bloom so we can employ even more Khmer staff in the future.
- We are a social enterprise, i.e., a private enterprise run along social lines, meaning we do not run the business solely for profit, but ensure workers are able to work in a comfortable environment and are paid fairly for their work.
- We refuse to register as an NGO as we do not want to rely on donations. We want to be self-reliant and self-sustaining.
- We believe it’s better to learn to fish than to be given a fish.
- We believe in the value and honour of work and we take pride in providing customers good products and service for a fair price.
- We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate against gender, religion or ethnicity.
- We maximise the use of recycled and fair trade materials. Currently, it is still not possible to purchase completely fair trade products used in your bag, such as zips and zipper pulls and plastic, as options are limited. Unfortunately, many items we consume or utilise are still too often produced by factories with little regard for workers’ welfare. We apologise to you in advance for this and promise to always look out for fairer alternatives.
- We understand the importance of saving and have a savings plan for staff. Every month, our workers are encouraged to set aside some savings so they can all own sewing machines. To encourage staff to save, Bloom subsidises the cost of the machines. This will enable workers to work not just for Bloom but to make bags to sell to different retailers, allowing them to earn more money.
- All profits (should we ever make any!) go to Cambodian staff and into the business. Ultimately the aim is for Bloom to be a worker’s co-operative, where workers work in cooperation to manage and grow the business.
We believe there are too many NGOs in Cambodia and that the country is too reliant on NGO money. Cambodia gets hundreds of millions in aid annually (USD690 million for 2007, a 15 per cent increase over the last year) .
"While Cambodia’s economy is one of the fastest growing economies in the region, some 35 percent of the kingdom’s 14 million people live in poverty, with nearly 50 percent of its national budget coming from international aid." (AFP, 12 Feb 2007).
Bloom believes regular and constant handouts create a dependency mentality that is ultimately detrimental to Cambodian people.
Furthermore, it is risky to rely on NGO funding, as donor nations are as wont to cut donations as they are to give them, depending on the donor’s economic performance. We believe it is important—indeed, necessary—for Cambodians to be self-reliant and to have a sustainable income.
Here at Bloom, we are taking small steps for Cambodians to learn a skill and a trade so they can produce quality products and be part of the international trading community.
Bloom is funded personally by Diana Saw, a Singaporean woman who came to Cambodia for a holiday and was shocked into action by the country’s poverty. Diana is using her life savings (which is not that much, as she is not that old!) to support Bloom.
One of the things Diana wanted to do when she started the project was to be in control of workers’ wages and their working conditions. This is why she started the workshop and did not just focus on design and outsource production to another company, as many people do.
Diana had visited Cambodia with Dale Edmonds, the founder of Riverkids Project (www.riverkidsproject.org), in 2006, when Dale was trying to prevent the sale of a baby by her mother. Diana felt pity for the mother who was subsequently jailed. She believed the woman sold the child out of the need for money and decided to start a business to provide jobs for women. There are many people helping Cambodian children, but Diana believes that it is just as important to help Cambodian adults, specifically, by providing jobs. As long as parents do not have a stable, secure life, their kids will never be stable and safe. Jobs provide regular income, which in turn provides stability, security, and a sense of the future.
Other people who fund BLOOM include you, the customer! Through your puchase, BLOOM is able to sustain its business model and mission in raising awareness on workers’ rights.
5. HOW ARE BLOOM BAGS DIFFERENT?
We use the best materials available and we are constantly upgrading our products in response to customer feedback. Customers constantly tell us that while other organisations make similar bags, Bloom bags stand out because of their quality and attention to detail. We use silk, cotton and recycled materials such as paper and ricefeed bags. Many of the designs are unique and cannot be copied because the cloth and accessories are specially imported and cannot be found in Cambodia.
A most frequently asked question. There are two main reasons why Bloom’s prices are higher than the stalls found in the market (but it should be known that our prices are no higher, and frequently lower, than many other shops in Cambodia).
The first is that we pay higher costs for quality materials. Because we know we have to stand out from the competition from NGOs on the one hand and capitalist businesses on the other, we are always on the lookout for the best possible materials for our bags and we take customer feedback very seriously. Thanks to our customers, the quality of our bags, in terms of materials and design is constantly improving.
The second reason that our bags are more expensive is that Bloom is adamant on paying fair wages and providing a happy working environment. We are not a factory; we are a small workshop of five people who dedicate their working hours to producing the best possible bags. For this reason, we have overheads that the stalls in the market do not. Please let us explain: Most of the market stalls pay workers piece rate, i.e, they get paid for each piece that they make and no more. Workers get no paid holidays, no sick leave; if they don’t work, they don’t get paid.
If you stop to think about it, when you pay USD2 for a bag, what is the markup for the retailer (who has to pay for his rent, electricity, staff, etc)? Then consider how much the materials, such as the silk, zips, lining cost. How much do you think goes to the maker of the bag. 50 cents? He or she would be lucky.
At Bloom, the average pay is 2.13 times more than the market rate.
Another reason that the market stalls are able to sell cheap is that many of the goods sold here are not locally made. Many are brought by traders from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China etc, where wages are shamefully low, low enough that a middleman is able to take his or her cut from the whole transaction.
We are not asking you not to shop at the market or to stop buying cheap things. In fact, in many ways shopping at the market for bargains is many times better than shopping at a famous brand store, which pays similarly low wages but then marks up ridiculously high and keep all the profits (or “create shareholder value” as they put it).
All we are asking is that you, the educated consumer, consider what you are buying and where your money is going. We are asking for some ethics and fairness in trade. For you to make a stand. For you to make your voice heard. Tell companies you know of that treat their workers badly that you will stop buying their products until conditions change. Tell retailers you are willing to pay a fair price if you knew how much the workers are getting. So that one day, we will stop screwing workers, just so we can selfishly purchase cheap products.
Individually, we can make a difference, and together, we can change the way things are produced and consumed.