An intense trip in the profound Mexico

blue An intense trip in the profound Mexico Jared W. Olen, founder of OlenJewelry.com, made an intense trip and his story is featured in this article. Olen Jewelry is an international retailer of high-quality, sterling silver jewelry. Jared told me a fascinating story about the campaign he will start soon and that will have the name Fair Trade Silver.

An intense trip in the profound Mexico

My idea for Fair Trade Silver came from a trip I took in May of 2006 to Mexico. My best friend, Kim, and I flew into Benito Júarez International Airport in Mexico City. We had worked since that January to plan a trip to see the “real” Mexico, that is, a trip that did not include staying in Americanized hotels and resorts.

While reading Jared story I thought, well, this is a really nice experience, in Mexico, culture and tradition are seen as central to life and society and Mexican people are profound and warm, not at all superficial. But you can’t understand their traditions if you stay in hotel. I continued to read his story…

My main goal for visiting Mexico was to visit Taxco in the Mexican state of Guerrero.

Taxco de Alarcón (Taxco) is a former colonial silver-mining center in the northern part of the Mexican state of Guerrero on the western arm of the Sierra Madre del Sur. It is located 200 km southwest of Mexico City along the old highway to Acapulco at an elevation of 1,800 m (5,900 ft).

…Taxco is known by many as the sterling silver capital of the world for it is home to countless shops that sell beautiful machine- and hand-crafted sterling silver jewelry made from silver mined just outside the town.

Taxco reminds me of quaint European town with its narrow, cobblestone streets and white-washed buildings that are perched on the side of a mountain. When one visits Taxco it is shocking to see how purely “un-Americanized” it really is. There are no Wal-Mart nor are there other corporate giants.

I love corporate giants :) and I would love to see a Wal-Mart in Italy, but this time I really envied Jared for this experience. The Aztecs founded a city they called “Tlacho”… what artistic treasures Jared will find?

…the silver trade in Taxco relies on buyers that travel from around Mexico, the United States, and the rest of the world to Taxco with cash in hand to purchase goods to bring back to their stores. I met many buyers there on their annual buying trips for stores in the United States and Canada. What really struck me, however, was the indigenous population that lives nearby.

Taxco has an “Indian Market” where indigenous people descend from the mountainside every day to display and sell hand-made goods to the citizens and visitors of Taxco. I thought to myself what a great idea it would be to establish a reliable international silver trade network between the silver shops and artisans in Taxco and the rest of the world.

As Olen Jewelry moves into the future, I am exploring the possibility of opening a community crafting center in or around Taxco where local artisans can use the workspace for free to create their jewelry. I will then bring their goods to the United States where they can be sold to the mass-market. All artisans will receive the majority of the proceeds from the sale of their jewelry. In this way, those people who do not have the money to invest in equipment and raw materials can still put themselves to work creating jewelry that truly is an expression of themselves and of Mexico.

This is admirable… well, a good business idea, of course, but also admirable, indeed. And we wish Jared to succeed in this project! We’ll post an update about this in the future.

Related Posts - Highly Relevant Content

Has the internet changed your life? Corrie Petersen is a WAHM wanna-be. She and her husband Kevin run a successful Christian jewelry business that can be found at http://heavenlycrosses.com. You can also check out Corrie’s other businesses at http://corriepetersen.com. Here's Corrie article for us. Has the internet changed your life? The internet was an amazing technological......
A beautiful Car-Pc Today we interview Oliver Aigner, owner of CarTFT.com. His business is very particular and I'm sure you'll love to read about it. They offer people a cheap way to integrate computers into cars. A beautiful Car-Pc When did you start your business? We started in May 2003. (You can read......
Love for Vintage This is a nice personal story written by Elizabeth Burn, a kind entrepreneur in the vintage clothing industry. Love for Vintage My love for vintage began when I was a poor college student in NYC, basically out of necessity, it evolved from a hobby and passion into a business. At......
The life of a T-shirt Designer Paul Baines is a T-shirt Designer and Blogger. Read his popular t-shirt reviews blog and read also about his highly original t-shirt designs. You can vote now on his latest Threadless.com submission or purchase pieces from his collection at Retrogod, Redbubble, Zazzle. This is his exclusive article for us, a......
Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and Batman together! Where can you see Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and Batman all together? But at The Noble Collection, of course! Along with fine sword replicas and classic creations from legend and lore, jewelry in gold and precious gems, porcelain sculptures, fantasy art and historic replicas of armor, weaponry and early inventions.......

Related Websites - Highly Relevant Content

Top Junior Silver Mining Companies In a previous post I said I'd talk about some of the smaller silver mining companies. Here they are. It's just a quick list to get you started on your own research. These are some of the companies that interested me. They're all silver-focused and interestingly, they're almost all Canadian-based. ......
Review: Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter Emily Albright is a 29 year old romantic whose first love was Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. This love affair started when she was 12 and no man has ever reached the bar that Mr. Darcy set. Of course if you were to look at her......
The Compelling Story Technique Any successful copy is going to tell a story. Just how well that story is told makes all the difference in whether or not a prospect turns into a customer. Here are a few tips to help you tell your story in a way that will hold the attention......
Stories Of Life Who doesn’t have stories? Who does something that isn’t play? I think we are stories. We are stories and we are more. We are the shapers of stories. Problem is, we have some serious issues like we believe things are serious. Play is permission to do. When we play as......
Covering External Stories - Good or Bad? No two blogs are created equally, and for that reason, corporate blogs all touch on different subjects and different stories. Some people who write in corporate blogs wonder if covering external stories is a good idea or a bad idea. Some people shy away from the idea simply because they......