Company View: Dhaka Handicraft

Dhaka Handicrafts is one of the largest craft producing and exporting organizations in Bangladesh, set up for the benefit of traditional craftmakers. Its product specialization is woven baskets from natural fibres and terracotta pottery. It is registered in Bangladesh as a "company limited by guarantee".
The owners of the organization are the artisan producers themselves.
Dhaka Handicrafts began in 1976 as EDM Handicrafts, a project of Enfants du Monde, the Swiss non-governmental international development organization. EDM Handicrafts has been transformed in the name of Dhaka Handicrafts as a self-sustaining development project of EDM Bangladesh. 
Our Aim - Uplift the socio-economic condition of distressed artisan families. 
Our Objectives: 
- To create fair income-generating opportunities for socio-economically deprived artisan families. 
- To make the tarfet familiesand the respective producing groups self-reliant through their earnings, savings, and awareness of self help. 
- To address gender issues and encourage women's leadership. 
- To enhance the skills of disadvantaged artisans by providing various skill development training, to enable producers to earn a good income from their work. 
- To introduce savings and local resource mobilization schemes. 
- To practice and promote producers' welfare and family development, and the principles of "fair trade". 
Our commitment to producers: 
- Interest free advance payment with each order, for the procurement of raw materials. 
- Saving scheme for producers' old age security. 
- Safe working environment and flexible working hours. 
- Health care. 
- Training for quality improvement and product development. 
- Incentives for production quantity and quality. 
- Participation in pricing, product development, decision making of the organization's activities. 
- Prompt payment. 
- Sapling distribution for the conservation of environment. 
- Equal wages for women and men producers. 
- Gender focus on women. 
Our strength: 
- 25 years experience in production and marketing. 
- Approximately 3,200 producer families with over 16,000 beneficiaries, working in 64 groups throughout Bangladesh. 
- Skilled producers with high production capacity. 
- Commitment towards fair trade. 
- Environment-friendly products. 
- Highly professional quality control team. 
- Modern warehouse facilities, with moisture detector and moisture control system. 
- Regular process of product development. 
- Well equipped office with modern communication facilities. 
- Self-sustaining organization, without any external dependency. 

The crafts are exported mainly to Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs). We have 35 regular buyers in Asia, Europe, America and the Pacific. 
Dhaka Handicrafts is a one-source supplier for products of different natural materials such as cane, grass, bamboo, terracotta, and mixed media.
It produces environment-friendly products made in ecologically sound and sustainable conditions. 
Child labour is prohibited. Each work order helps the rural disadvantaged artisans fight against poverty and is a step towards their decent existence.