Life Changing Production

Hand knit organic stuffed animals

Gabriel and Irma's New Life

While small family businesses are almost unheard of in toy production, this one, run by Javier and Elsa stands apart. Their business grows its own organic cotton, runs its own small-batch sewing factory in Lima, and serves as a central hub for dozens of tiny knitting cooperatives who would never get their hand knit products to market without Javier and Elsa's expertise, assistance, and passion for helping others.

Grandparents of the Joobles

These tiny knitting cooperatives are the birth places for The Joobles – our organic plush toys. We like to refer to Javier and Elsa as Los Abuelos de Los Joobles – The Grandparents of The Joobles.

Javier and Huggy

Javier is a farmer at heart. His passion for organic cotton began decades ago when he learned that a staggering 25% of the world’pesticide is used on cotton, which occupies only 2% of the farmland.

Owing to the harsh winter climate in the highlands, Peru has an abundance of incredibly skilled (and very patient! – see videos below) sweater knitters. But too often these skills don’t translate into sustainable incomes.

Javier and Elsa are changing that for dozens of such knitters. Elsa scouts for and hires the artisans, trains them in areas like logistics, inventory management, and quality control, and coordinates production and exportation.

Ethically made stuffed animals

Artisans like Irma and Gabriel proudly knit our Huggy the Bear. Prior to being hired by Elsa, the couple lived in a shantytown outside of Lima where they had come from the countryside ten years earlier in search of a better life.

Fair trade stuffed animals

The better life didn’t come easily, but since being hired by Elsa, they have upgraded their home two times and now live in a brick house in a neighborhood where both of their children can attend public school – something Irma said was her ultimate dream. She was never able to attend.

 

 

 

The Joobles are finished, inspected, packed, and shipped from Elsa and Javier’s factory in Lima. Here is “smile maker” Maria with her favorite Jooble – Jiffy the Giraffe.

 

 

With all this goodness, it’s no wonder the Joobles bring pure joy to everyone who meets them.


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< Certifications

Helping Kids/Fair Indigo Foundation >