Ruth DeGolia

2004

Ruth DeGolia

Mercado Global

http://www.mercadoglobal.org

New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Community Improvement & Economic Development

The Bold Idea:

Linking the world’s most rural and economically-disadvantaged cooperatives to the U.S. market through a model that provides both fair wages and investments in community’s long-term development.

Together with partner NGOs, Mercado Global works with women’s cooperatives across the world and helps them to create beautiful handmade products. Through an online store and a Fair Trade Sourcing Program, it then finds the markets for their products. All of Mercado's sales provide women with fair wages and investments in their children’s education.

Based in New Haven, Conneticut and conceived of by two graduating Yale University students, Mercado Global partners with local NGOs to provide technical assistance to community-based cooperatives to produce traditional products that meet US market demands (which are sold at four times the local rate).

Biography:

As Mercado Global’s Co-Founder and Executive Director, Ruth DeGolia has established Mercado Global’s production structure and partnerships with cooperatives and local NGOs in Latin America. She works with Mercado Global’s regional staff to oversee production and provide member cooperatives with technical support in the areas of financial, business, and program management and growth. Ruth also builds partnerships with other organizations and corporations in the U.S. and abroad.

Ruth has been recognized for her role in founding and supporting a variety of programs and organizations related to international development and poverty alleviation. She has also received honors for her academic work on the impact of globalization on political and economic development in Latin America, including the William H. Orrick prize at Yale University. In May 2004, she was named among the “World’s Best Emerging Social Entrepreneurs” by the Echoing Green Foundation. She also received the “Award for Social Innovation” from the Social Enterprise Alliance in April 2005. In July 2006 she was selected as one of the “15 People Who Make America Great” by Newsweek Magazine and was featured on the magazine’s cover along with Brad Pitt and Soledad O’Brian of CNN. Ruth graduated with distinction from Yale University with degrees in Ethics, Politics, and Economics and in International Studies.

In an interview with Echoing Green, Ruth and Benita talk about starting their organization and their hopes for the future.

Moment of Obligation: When and why did you decide to start your organization?
We founded Mercado Global in August 2003 after spending two years in Guatemala working with rural communities struggling to find a sustainable strategy for development. The members of the communities told us they wanted to overcome political and economic isolation by promoting development through local cooperatives. We realized that we could empower their local development efforts by connecting their cooperatives to U.S. markets.

After a series of informal sales on our college campus provided fair-wage employment for women belonging to 10 different cooperatives, provided the funding for 22 cooperative members’ children to attend primary school and effectively mobilized students around fair trade and socially-responsible consumerism, we realized the potential for the project to empower both our constituents abroad and students in the U.S.

A snapshot in ten years: What is your dream of what's happening? What impact has your organization had?
Our dream for Mercado Global in ten years is that it will have:

1. Provided a sustainable model for development for communities across the world
2. Replicated its model of promoting locally-controlled development in other developing countries
3. Mobilized students across the country to promote socially-responsible consumerism on their campuses and gain the entrepreneurial skills they need to make a difference in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors, and thereby
4. Created a demand in the U.S. for socially-responsible merchandise that provides artisans and producers abroad both a fair wage and greater access to public goods.