Gundara Leather Bags - Fair Trade from Afghanistan

Online, January 31, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Summary

Gundara are Jean Amat Amoros and Gunda Wiegmann. Together they design leather bags with Afghan artisans who produce the bags in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Gundara creates sustainable business and livelihood development in Afghanistan. About 30% of the retail price of the leather bags goes directly back to the producers in Kabul.
Gundara's designs are a combination of Afghan traditions and Occidental tastes. Fine handmade embroideries and traditional colorful striped chopan (Karzai's cloak) cloth are used to create a fusion of European functionality as well as Central and South Asian patterns.
Since Gundara is in direct contact with the producers of the leather bags and embroidery, fair working and fair trade conditions can be guaranteed.

The Name

The word Gundara is our own creation. It reminds us of "Guldara" (Persian for flower valley) and of Gandhara, the Buddhist culture that flourished in the region in the first century B.C.. The name also plays with Persian sound of one of the creator's names, Gunda.
The Idea Behind

Gundara was created in May 2009, by Jean (35) a French geographer and Gunda, (32), a German political scientist, to combine a long work history in Afghanistan, a desire to help Afghan artisans, an interest in fashion and an interest in showing the world how nice Afghan products can be.

When Gunda and Jean went for the first time to the workshop of Mr. Mohammad Yaqub, the primary producer, in spring 2006 in Kabul, there was not much activity, but a great eagerness to work. In January 2009 Jean created a small catalog to present the leather bags that Gunda and Mohammad Yaqub created. Making use of their network to sell these leather bags, the idea blossomed, and in summer 2009 the online-shop www.gundara.com opened up.

For them it was clear that Gundara would not be another development project led by external financing. In an effort to create "sustainable business development" using local natural tanned goat leather, they wanted to ensure that the endeavor would remain environmentally friendly, refinance itself and yield profit.

As production began in 2009 Mr. Yaqub did not get the full picture because Gunda and Jean were careful not to create unjustified hope, Mr. Yaqub probably thought that they were some crazy foreigners with unrealistic ideas in their heads but as long as he sold some bags, he was content.

A Process

It was certainly not always easy. In the beginning they only ordered bags from Mr. Yaqub when people had ordered from them. They did not have a stock. Through this system, delivery to the western world took sometimes more than two months. On October 8, 2009, a suicide attack destroyed Mr. Yaqub's shop. Fortunately, nobody in the shop was harmed, but numerous bags were destroyed and delivery was delayed. Not all clients had sympathy for this.
Gundara now has a stock in Berlin. Through this system, bags get delivered within a few days within Germany and the EU. In the first year Gundara sold leather bags mostly in Germany, slowly expanding to other European countries and the USA. Gundara's clients are a mix of people who simply like the bags, others who like the concept and others who are somehow connected to the region of Central and South Asia.
A major difficulty has been the transport of the bags to Europe. Once at the post office, an employee said that he had to unsew all the bags' seams to check for heroin. It was obvious that Gundara had to find an alternative method of transport, and not to rely on bribes to a corrupted public service employee.
Fortunately, Gunda and Jean had already worked in Afghanistan for several years. They were familiar with the culture and spoke conversational Dari (the Persian dialect spoken in Afghanistan). But the communication channels from Berlin to Kabul had to settle into a routine. They introduced a system in which they would send orders through email in English to Mr. Yaqub's nephew, and they would then follow up with Mr. Yaqub directly on the phone in Dari.
In the first year Gundara sold almost 400 leather items (mainly leather bags). Throughout the year the website was improved and in December 2010 a new webshop was launched. At the same time Gundara started selling the products to shops in Berlin and organizing "Open Houses" to which clients were invited.

An Outlook

Our aim is to increase sales in Europe, Afghanistan and the US. Gundara constantly works to increase the selection of items and to optimize quality. Gunda and Jean realized that the production capacity of their single production company for leather bags is limited and they are in the process of developing a network of producers, to expand the benefit of fair trade to more producers. If somebody had asked Gunda and Jean in 2009 they would probably never have thought that they would get this far. This gives Gunda and Jean new energy and resources that they invest into Gundara!