For craftspeople in the Third World, "village is where one's heart is: where family and tradition and culture reside. In our mass production world, villages are still a setting for the individualized creation of authentic handicrafts.

Making handicrafts is a way to pass one's culture and skills to the next generation. But as the outside world pushes at the village, taking its natural resources and often its children, it becomes more and more difficult to live the village way of life.

By selling their handicrafts, Ten Thousand Villages helps craftspeople provide food and education for their families and helps these threatened villages survive. Each village represents a unique, distinctive group of people. Multiply the village idea by ten thousand and it represents the world that our program is working to build.

In 1995, sales through North American retail stores and consignment sales generated nearly 11,000 jobs. In reality, most craftspoeple work part-time at handicraft production so fair trade with Ten Thousand Villages benefited some 60,000 craftspeople in more than 30 countries. For more than 50 years, Ten Thousand Villages (formerly SELFHELP Crafts) has built a reputation of integrity. Ten Thousand Villages is a member of the International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT).

Some of our most popular products are:

• Muhugu Wood and Kisii Stone from Kenya
  
  
• Handmade Paper from Bangladesh