Pachacuti - Panama Hats and Fair Trade Clothing

In July I attended the National Awards for Excellence in which Pachacuti was a finalist in the International category for our impact on Millenium Development Goals.  The other finalists were all huge multinationals such as Barclays Bank, Reuters, Cisco Systems and several more.  The award ceremony took place at the Royal Albert Hall and and coincided with a celebration of the Prince of Wales 25th anniversary as president of Business in the Community, with the ceremony hosted by Stephen Fry.
Pachacuti was shortlisted in the International category which recognises a company's impact on addressing Millenium Development Goals.  Pachacuti was one of  three East Midlands businesses shortlisted in their categories, the others being Northern Foods and Rolls Royce. 

The International Award was won by Barclays Bank who, together with The Guardian, have supported the Katine project in Uganda which has increased access to clean water.  We were delighted and surprised when it was announced that we were Highly Commended in the International category. Also Highly Commended in the category was Reuters for the information service provided to the Indian farming community via mobile phones.   

Pachacuti's award was for the Sustainable Fair Trade Management System which we have implemented over the past two years.  Six months ago, Pachacuti became the first company in the world to be certified against this new standard and are now able to label all of our clothing and accessories as Fair Trade Certified UK 0001.  In addition to paying a fair wage to producers of our clothing and Panama hats, Pachacuti is involved in improving all aspects of their social and economic wellbeing, from providing training classes to purchasing glasses and paying for cataract operations.  Around 70 organisations worldwide are now using tools and methodology developed by myself and my team in order to assess the Fair Trade development of their producers.

I hope that being Highly Commended for the International award proves that you do not need to be a large company in order to make an impact on achieving Millennium Development Goals. I believe that every small business in the UK could potentially affect the lives of their overseas suppliers through ensuring high social and environmental standards throughout their supply chain.

I am delighted and honoured to be a finalist in the Women on their Way Awards in the Outstanding Contribution to Women's Learning and Development category. Apparently the competition was very tough this year and so I'm very happy to have reached this stage, particularly as I only found out about the awards through Twitter the day before they closed and had to stay up very late to do a last-minute entry!

The Women on their Way Awards were set up by former candidate on The Apprentice, Jo Cameron, and her Co-Director Lisa Ibbotson. The aim of Women on Their Way is to inspire women around the world to improve their lives, moving towards equality.