Friday 31 July 2009

where do they come from?




I first met Pankaj when he was four years old, I was visiting a colony of homes whilst on holiday in India. Pankaj has quite a posh house compared to some, it has mud walls and a tin roof. I don’t think the colony was often visited by tourists, so many children came up to see this novelty! i said hello to everyone… Pankaj appeared from under the bed with his school book, signalled to me to sit down and proceeded to show me his work. he didn’t learn english at his school but he was really proud because he knew one, two and three in english. he made me sit until I had learnt my name and one two and three in hindi! I find it very difficult to decide which one of us has everything and which one of us has nothing in our relationship, but I do know that he is one clever boy – he saw an opportunity and grabbed it!


whats this got to do with flowers then?



well the sale of flowers, (you can buy them in our fabulous online boutique) has supported pankaj through school, because he has worked so hard, last year we went to see his headmaster and agreed to transfer him to an english school. recently he told me in english he had achieved his first ever 1st class pass, so excited he dived under his mattress to find the certificate to show me… all i managed to do was burst into tears because he had told me in english, that totally confused him but luckily the international language of laughter got me out of that hole!

Our flowers aren’t just great because they pay for the school fees for several children now they are also made in a special way. You see when we make them it is done from the fleece from our sheep, which is good because it is natural. Then they are felted completely by hand, which is really hard work for lots of people, which is good because it creates jobs and makes people feel better about themselves. we don’t need electricity to make our flowers which is good because we don’t want to be greedy and use up the earths resources on fun things. Even better we don’t create any waste when we make our flowers because what’s the point!

next time you go to make a purchase ask where it came from...

read more of our story here or have a look at some pictures here

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