Innovation

The innovation of the Someone Somewhere artisan business model is built on the framework that through fair trade with artisan communities, Someone Somewhere can contribute to the community's economic development while also protecting the traditional craft.

The founders of Someone Somewhere focused on three areas of improvement to enhance the artisan business model.

1. Expanding the consumer base by helping artisans find buyers.
2. Sourcing an array of new materials to help artisans differentiate their product offerings.
3. Helping artisans understand the latest designs in the marketplace to remain competitive.

It is all about Simplify, Connect and Discover.

Simplify: They want to make our journey easier. Their products are designed for us to enjoy the road.

Connect: They believe in meaningful connections, especially those that change lives. Each of their product is crafted to connect us with its creator, family, and community.

Discover: The idea is for us to ALL discover new places together. They want to be a part of our recent adventures.

Inspiration

The co-founders of Someone Somewhere participated in mission work during their time in school and visited villages where local artisans lived and worked. They discovered these artisans used their traditional talents to sell handcrafted products to tourists and locals, but they needed more resources to market their products outside their local territory. The co-founders were inspired to help connect these artisans to a broader consumer demographic and provide them with the opportunity to generate consistent labor and strengthen production chains. Ultimately, they allowed artisans to create viable businesses that would break the cycle of generational poverty in their area. A recent article was published by Enrique Rodríguez Aréchiga, one of the Co-founders of Someone Somewhere, on the topic in Mexico Business News in February of 2022. "Strong Partnerships and Goodwill Can Lead to SDG 2030 Achievement"

"Once we understood the problem, we then realized that we were becoming or we were creating a fashion brand even when we are engineers and didn't know anything about fashion or creativity or whatever, except knowing this was the means to solve this social problem, and that is when we all kind of stepped in and started working." ~ Enrique Rodríguez Aréchiga

Overall impact

In 2021, Someone Somewhere published its impact report that highlighted its impact across its economic, social, cultural, and sectorial impact goals.

Economic: Increasing income and ensuring fair wages for all artisans while providing steady and diversified sources of income to keep the artisans working.

Social: Increasing family well-being by empowering women artisans to become business leaders and helping them improve their communication and business skills.

Cultural: Preserve the culture by incorporating artisan techniques, tools, and designs into every product created while encouraging new generations to continue the tradition.

Sectorial: Proving a retail supply chain model with artisans, manufacturers, and designers; demonstrating artisanal goods can scale as a business.

Short-term effects can be seen in the employment of artisan men and women, especially the artisan's mothers and daughters.

Long-term effects will be seen through generational sustainability.

Business benefit

As part of the 10th-anniversary celebration, Someone Somewhere had an opening workshop in Naupan, Puebla, in 2021. This represented a pivotal moment of growth and consolidation with the very first group of artisans.

Someone Somewhere has also formed several partnerships. One partnership is with Delta Airlines, which has generated thousands of hours of work per year for the groups of artisans with whom Someone Somewhere collaborates in Oaxaca and Michoacán. Beginning in 2022, all passengers who fly with Delta will receive its collaboration product kits, and the project will benefit more than 1,000 people from Mexican communities.

With its partnership, Delta Airlines will make a social and economic impact. These kits will help reduce Delta's use of plastics by 90,000 pounds by eliminating single-use plastics such as closures and packaging. Someone Somewhere will also help mitigate carbon emissions through traditional loom and craft production techniques.

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Social and environmental benefit

Someone Somewhere has helped to contribute to the well-being of the communities of artisans by integrating their traditional work into innovative products and channels that generate opportunities for fair and constant work.

A study based on 21 in-depth interviews with Mexican artisans from Chiapas, Guerrero, Puebla, and Yucatán reveals the barriers perceived by indigenous artisans in Mexico when facing a capitalist system and their perception of access to financial resources as one of the most significant problems in the sector. Researchers concluded that the artisans recognize the exclusion of the market as the main barrier to their development.

The study also highlights the role of the material environment, institutional and social regulation, built-in skills, and their interactions as factors reinforcing exclusion from the market.

Regarding indebtedness, indigenous artisans prefer informal loans, such as family or group savings, to institutional ones, as they are more flexible, cheaper, and based on moral rather than legal contracts.

Source: Soso, D. (2021). Crafting the Gateway to the Market: Individual and Contextual Barriers perceived by Mexican Ethnic Artisans in a Capitalist System. London School of Economics.

Interview

Enrique Rodríguez Aréchiga, Co-Founder & CFO

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