At Myakka, we believe in doing our best. We pride ourselves on being a family-run business offering high-quality, well-designed furniture and furnishings at great value prices. We have a strong ethical and environmental awareness and are always striving to improve our performance in these areas. We like to think we’re honest, friendly and easy to deal with. Our business is firmly based on the principles of Fair Trade and to this end, we’re proud to be a recognised importer and retail member of BAFTS (British Association for Fair Trade Shops). Naturally, some of our suppliers are more fair trade than others, but we’re confident that more than 90% of the products on offer are sourced in a fair trade manner.

The British Association for Fair Trade Shops (BAFTS) is an internationally recognised association promoting fair trade retailing in the UK and seeking to raise the profile of fair trade on the High Street. BAFTS certifies all members using strict criteria based on the definitions and guidelines for fair trade as set by the four leading international Fair Trade networks and works to provide a point of contact and communication for the exchange of ideas amongst its members. For more information on BAFTS and the assessment criteria, visit their website http://www.bafts.org.uk

We are proud to announce that in August 2009, we received the Ethical Award for demonstrating corporate social responsibility. This Ethical Award puts Myakka in the top 33% of companies deemed to excel in ethical consumerism with an excellent corporate social responsibility strategy. The application process takes 6 weeks and involves research teams analyzing each applicant company’s record on up to 15 specific criteria under the 3 general headings of Environment, Animals and People. The Ethical Accreditation Company search for criticisms within several thousand documents from NGO’S, Campaign Groups and Court Reports and this search is repeated every 12 months. For more information visit the Ethical Accreditation Company

Myakka Fair Trade Mark

For your peace of mind, look out for the Myakka Fair Trade mark against products on this website. This signifies that we are confident that the sourcing of this product meets our Fair Trade standards.

Exclusive to Myakka

We adhere to the principles of Fair Trade – paying a fair price which reflects the true cost of production and supporting the development of our suppliers. We’ve been working with our furniture supplier for over seven years and have committed to a long term relationship which enables mutual growth and development. As such, many of our designs are exclusive to Myakka having been created through our direct collaboration with our supplier. We visit Jodhpur frequently to work on new designs and check the ethical standards we believe in are being met by both our manufacturer and their subcontractors. As a philanthropic family, our supplier is the main benefactor of Vidhyashram School, an independent school in Jodphur, northern India offering education to children from 4 to 16 years with a proportion of the profit from their business being passed directly to the school.

Myakka & SKSN School

Myakka is working alongside SKSN, a school providing care and education for physically challenged children from rural areas of Rajasthan. Our involvement is two-fold, offering direct donations from our company profits and also working to set up long-term trade links to provide a future earning capacity for the children of SKSN.

In February 2008, we donated £1,270 to assist in the running costs of the school dairy which provides essential milk and yogurt to the children and in January 2009, we donated a further £5,000 towards the costs of clothing, medicine and equipment for the limb workshop. In conjunction our main furniture supplier, we commissioned the construction of 70 desks and benches were delivered to the school in July 2009. Myakka covered the cost of the materials for these desk and our furniture supplier kindly covered the cost of production.

We are working to set up apprenticeships for older children to work alongside the skilled furniture-makers in the factory once they have finished their education and have also commissioned the production of three ranges of cushions which have been produced by pupils who have completed their studies at the school. Both these projects aim to provide a number of SKSN pupils with essential skills to help ensure their future independence. Having provided an interest free loan to the school to cover the set up costs, the cushions are featured in our latest catalogue and are now available online. We visited SKSN again in October 2009 in order to further this project and put more soft furnishing lines into production and again more recently in February 2010, when we donated an additional £5,700 towards shoes, medicines, toiletries and food costs.
Visit SKSN School website to read about the great work they do and donate directly should you wish.

Myakka & Somerset Community Foundation

Here at home, Myakka supports the Somerset Community Foundation and in September 2009 donated £5,000 as our initial pledge towards setting up the Myakka Grassroots Fund. This fund has a target value of £25,000 to be built up over the next 3 years and will be used to support local family projects within South Somerset. The Myakka team recently visited one of the projects that the donations have benefited allowing us all to see firsthand the benefits of Myakka’s support.

Visit Somerset Community Foundation website to read about the great work they do and donate directly should you wish.

UK Operations

With regards to our textile products, we work closely with a select few UK-based importers for the supply of the majority of our soft furnishing lines. Our main supplier has been adhering to a strict Fair Trade policy since they began trading over twelve years ago and works directly with many primary producers having built up long-lasting business relationships over this period. This importer is also accredited by the British Association of Fair Trade Shops (BAFTS) and is listed in the BAFTS Importers Directory.

To summarise, we’re running an expanding business and while we’re not perfect, we are committed to continuously improving our environmental and ethical practices. We feel strongly that the sale of our products through Myakka should directly benefit the producers and the surrounding communities and this is a goal to which we are fully dedicated. Should you wish to discuss our Fair Trade policy further – do just give us a call on 0845 460 3122 and ask to speak to Simon.

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