<\/p>\n
Listen to a report about Brent\u2019s efforts to improve life for the\u00a0weavers in Ecuador.<\/p>\n
Aired During the Week of May 18, 2008<\/small><\/p>\n
Anchor:<\/strong> Some\u00a0of the finest straw hats in the world come from Ecuador. The best sell for\u00a0hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Most of that money goes to hat dealers and\u00a0retail stores. The weavers themselves barely survive on the money they make.\u00a0One American businessman is trying to change that equation. Mary Stucky reports\u00a0from the central coast of Ecuador. Mary Stucky: The sun has gone down in the\u00a0dry dusty village of Pile. The villagers here are settling in for the night.\u00a0But work has just begun for Sim\u00f3n Espinal.<\/p>\n Sim\u00f3n Espinal:<\/strong>\u00a0(speaking spanish)<\/em><\/p>\n Translator:<\/strong> All my life, I\u2019ve liked this job of\u00a0weaving hats. And I pray to God to give me the good eyes I need to do this job\u00a0well.<\/p>\n Stucky:<\/strong> Espinal works in the bedroom of his house. He stands hunched over\u00a0at almost a ninety degree angle. His chest rests on a block of wood. He reaches\u00a0down below that and starts to work on a hat he\u2019s weaving around a\u00a0circular block. This is the traditional position for weaving. And it leaves\u00a0Espinal\u2019s neck and shoulders in pain. The thirty-nine year old weaves at\u00a0night when it\u2019s cooler. That\u2019s because a single drop of sweat can\u00a0ruin a hat. The process can be nerve-wracking.<\/p>\n Espinal:<\/strong> (speaking spanish)<\/em><\/p>\n Translator:<\/strong> When I start a hat, I\u2019m thinking, \u201cWhen am I going to\u00a0finish?\u201d When I finish the hat, I\u2019m proud but very worried while\u00a0I\u2019m weaving.<\/p>\n Stucky:<\/strong> It takes three months of this pain-staking labor to\u00a0make a single hat. But, oh, what a hat! The strands of straw are so fine and\u00a0are woven so tightly it appears to be made not of straw but of linen.\u00a0They\u2019re called \u2018Panama hats\u2019 because they were worn by\u00a0workers who built the Panama Canal. The finest sell for mind-boggling thousands\u00a0of dollars. But the weavers themselves usually make less than two thousand\u00a0dollars a year. Even Sim\u00f3n Espinal, who is considered one of the finest\u00a0weavers alive, even he has thought about leaving Ecuador in search of work.<\/p>\n Espinal:<\/strong> (speaking spanish)<\/em><\/p>\n Translator:<\/strong> I have thought of it. But then I think\u00a0of my family and my children left behind in Ecuador and growing up without a\u00a0father.<\/p>\n Stucky:<\/strong> But now there may be a way to keep Sim\u00f3n Espinal home\u00a0with his family, thanks to a retired advertising executive from Hawaii. Brent\u00a0Black discovered Panama hats twenty years ago when he came to Ecuador on\u00a0vacation. Black was amazed by the hats he saw. And he saw something else: a\u00a0business opportunity that would mean some money for him and also for the\u00a0weavers. He became a man on a mission.<\/p>\n Brent Black:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s\u00a0critically important that these people will have a quality of life that allows\u00a0them to do their art\u2026would help if he\u2019s not totally consumed by\u00a0hunger or something.<\/p>\n Stucky:<\/strong> Black wanted to sell more hats at higher prices\u00a0and, at the same time, pay the hat makers an equitable cut of the sale price.<\/p>\n Black:<\/strong> That\u2019s part of what I\u2019m trying to do is to get people in the\u00a0buying market to understand the value of the hats so that the retail prices can\u00a0more closely approximate what they should be in order to generate enough for\u00a0the guys who are making them.<\/p>\n Stucky:<\/strong> So Black brought high-tech marketing to\u00a0this low-tech craft. Black developed a Web site to sell the hats.<\/p>\n Black:<\/strong> Now we\u00a0go to the ironing\u2026this is a Sim\u00f3n hat and when he\u2019s cutting\u00a0off the excess straw, he gathers it, bundles it, and saves it. That way,\u00a0it\u2026<\/p>\n Stucky:<\/strong> The Web site features beautiful photos of the hat-making\u00a0process. It begins with trekking into the rain forest to cut the palm fibers\u00a0that make up the hat. After the hat is woven, there\u2019s still work to be\u00a0done. In fact, it has to be ironed. The men who do that are called Planchedors.\u00a0And the late Nestor Franco was revered as one of the best. Black clicks to a\u00a0photo of Franco who ironed the hats until they were as smooth as silk.<\/p>\n Black:\u00a0<\/strong>You can see the old iron heating in the coals. Nestor would build his fire\u00a0first thing in the morning.<\/p>\n Stucky:<\/strong> The hats on the Web site cost from about\u00a0four hundred dollars to more than ten thousand depending on the fineness of the\u00a0weave. A weaver can make up to forty percent of that price once the hat sells.\u00a0Black says one weaver received a check for a single hat that was equal to what\u00a0he used to earn in an entire year. Black ships to buyers all over the world. He\u00a0just sent a hat to the actor Peter O\u2019Toole. But all this may not be\u00a0enough to save the craft. Some say it\u2019s too late; that there aren\u2019t\u00a0enough fine weavers left because so many have emigrated in search of better\u00a0paying jobs. Others say there aren\u2019t enough people willing to pay such\u00a0high prices for hats. But for the several hundred weavers Black works with,\u00a0life is getting better. Sim\u00f3n Espinal is one of them. He says that\u00a0before he went to work for Brent Black, he sometimes didn\u2019t have enough\u00a0to eat.<\/p>\n