Market Shifts: Leslie Batchelor Helps PAMBE Ghana’s Popular Fair Trade Market Go Online

How can a small Oklahoma City nonprofit survive a pandemic? Dream big and talk to your friends – PAMBE Ghana is lucky to count attorney Leslie Batchelor as a friend and loyal customer of its seasonal fair trade Global Market. When the nonprofit’s way forward was clearly to move the Global Market to online sales, Leslie Batchelor offered space adjacent to her law office for an inventory warehouse and sales office.

Leslie Batchelor shows a basket crafted in Uganda

“Once it became clear that PAMBE Ghana’s Global Market would have to change course from its traditional storefront model, we put our heads together and agreed that the Market must continue. Profits from sales provide crucial funding for our elementary school in rural northern Ghana,” said Tom Ziebell, president of PAMBE Ghana’s board. The school, La’Angum Learning Center (LLC), enrolls 275 children in pre-K through grade 6.

PAMBE Ghana is excited at this new community partnership, which enables them to start a new adventure in online marketing. Leslie and her dad, Dan Batchelor, agreed that PAMBE Ghana could use vacant space in their building, The Center For Economic Development Law. Leslie, president of The Center, has been a regular customer at the Market, which has operated seasonally since 2008. She notes, “I have shopped at the Global Market most years when I’m looking for unique and special gibs. I like that I can be doing good by supporting artists working in their communities for a fair wage and supporting LLC at the same time. Elementary education and the arts are basic building blocks for communities wherever they are.”

Sara Braden and Seaira Hull picking up orders at the learning tree in Oklahoma City.

The new online Global Market offers fair trade items from around the world, made by artisans who are paid a living wage for their work. New items are being added weekly and will continue through December. Shoppers may visit www.pambeghana.org to order. Currently orders are available for pickup only at learning tree toy store, 7638 N. Western, Oklahoma City.

PAMBE Ghana began in Oklahoma City in 2008 with the dream of OCU graduate, Alice Azumi Iddi-Gubbels. Her dream: build a model of quality basic education in an underserved area of northern Ghana. Oklahoma City friends embraced Alice’s vision and began the fair trade Global Market to support her dream. The La’Angum Learning Center has flourished through partnerships with local villages in Ghana, friends and supporters in Oklahoma City and Canada, and now Leslie Batchelor and her dad.

For more information visit www.pambeghana.org.

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Your Donation Today Will Help PAMBE Ghana Provide:
-- Teacher's salary
-- Children’s health insurance
-- Montessori materials
-- Teacher education

PAMBE Ghana is a 501(c)(3) registered charitable organization.


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