We are pleased to announce our second bit of Global Daughter Press! This interview was taken in our hometown of Auburn, Washington and appeared in the Saturday edition of the Auburn Reporter. We look forward to more exposure in the future and appreciate all the support!
By ROBERT WHALE
Auburn Reporter News reporter
Sep 20 2008
With refueling stops in New York and Abu Dhabi, 35 bone-numbing hours separate SeaTac Airport from its counterpart in Kathmandu, Nepal.
But more than physical space separates those compass points. Nepal, one of the poorest countries on Earth, recently has passed through the bloody trial of 12 years of civil war that wrenched it from a monarchy to a democracy.
Kathmandu, its capitol city, reeks with garbage, its air is choked by automobile exhaust fumes, its sacred river is fouled beyond description. Water-borne diseases kill thousands of people every year.
Auburn natives Erika Mosebach and Erin Miller, who live in Nepal, say that it also is one of the few countries in the world where women, working 16-hour days with little or no pay and subject to all kinds of degradation, die before the men.
Mosebach and Miller, best friends from childhood and at 27 seasoned world travelers, are doing something to ease the lot of their sisters across the globe.
Their brainchild is Global Daughter, an on-line fair trade, global boutique aimed at improving the economic standing of vulnerable women in Nepal. Its goal is to help the women there earn a better living by selling their handiwork all over the world, not just in their local marketplaces.
Global Daughter dates to the spring of 2007 when Miller volunteered in Nepal. She would later show Mosebach some beautiful handicrafts from her adventure.
“Later, we both did a volunteer project there, and the idea kind of spun after that,” said Mosebach. “What we saw was that all these poor countries are getting money from different donors, but it’s never trickling down to the people who actually need it because so often the governments are corrupt.”
In January 2008, Mosebach who with Miller had spent three years traveling through Asia, moved to Nepal and Global Daughter was born. Through fair-trade initiatives and skills development training, Global Daughter creates an opportunity for otherwise marginalized women to find an outlet for their talent and connect to the global market.
And because they actually live in Nepal, Mosebach and Miller are able to connect with women in profound ways.
That’s how they met Urmilla, a 70-year-old widow, and her 24-year-old daughter, Roma, who takes care of her. Mosebach and Miller first ran into them on a visit to one of the local markets, where they sell their beaded jewelry.
“They haven’t worked with any foreigners before and don’t speak any English,” Mosebach said. “We get a local guy from the market to help translate the stuff. Their house is just a room that they pay $14 a month in rent for. There’s a bed in there, and they sit on the floor and bead all day and bring their stuff to the market. We have started having them make these Cleopatra malla necklaces, which are our biggest seller. They might sell a piece or two at the market, but now since we have started working with them, we have increased their orders. Now they can make twice the average daily income.
“… They are ecstatic,” Mosebach said. “They have never worked with a foreigner before, and here they have gone from selling maybe a piece or two a day to having these big orders. It is going to change their lives dramatically.”
For one thing, the spike in income will enable the women to send their daughters, not just their sons, to school.
Such success and business acumen might come as a surprise to some considering neither is a business major – Mosebach holds a B.A. in European studies and Miller has a B.A. in philosophy.
Mosebach and Miller have financed everything themselves. They saved money living in Japan where they taught English to kids.
“What we are trying to do is provide women with skills development training and give them the resources and tools they need to be financially independent and successful,” Mosebach said. “We take the skills that they already know, working with textiles, handmade paper and jewelry, and we modify their designs or give them new ideas so that we can bring their handicrafts to the Western market.”
Nepal, Mosebach said, is such a landlocked country that it is hard to get in and out of, and it is hard to import and export goods. For this reason, the economic boom that swept over India and China bypassed Nepal.
“... They have never been a democracy before, so the people don’t really know how to deal with that or what that means. So basically, the country is in disarray, and there is no real government there; they are just trying to figure everything out. And because of that, there are still a lot of problems,” Mosebach said.
Mosebach has been in Auburn since July but will return to Nepal in January. Miller is still in Nepal.
“I am back here handling all the logistics and marketing of the business, including the launch of the Web site. It’s been a tedious process,” Mosebach said. “We used the resources we had in Nepal to get our website done, but it’s hard to do that when you lose power for eight hours a day.”
Mosebach said she and Miller expect the Nepal operation to run itself in a few years. At that point they will move on, likely to Cambodia, and repeat their success there.
“Our ultimate dream is for women worldwide to know what their value is, what their worth is. We want to improve living conditions for women all over the world and provide economic independence for these people, help lift them out of situations of poverty and abuse,” Mosebach said.
“... Not every woman is a mother, not every woman is a wife, but every woman is a daughter, so we can all identify with that,” Mosebach added.
To read more and to view their products, visit www.globaldaughter.com.
Auburn Reporter News reporter Robert Whale can be reached at rwhale@reporternewspapers.com or 253-833-0218, ext. 5052.
