The world this week is sadly less of a global village than it was 10 days ago. At least Kusum Tiwari is back in India, safe and sound after her first trip to East Asia, and two weeks in Japan.

Kusum (whose name means "flower") meets me in August in Jiyugaoka's People Tree shop, where clothes made by the collective she founded three years ago in New Delhi are now on sale. A slight, sweetly smiling figure in jeans and an ikat-design cotton shirt, handwoven from tie-dyed thread, she hangs up samples of shirts, skirts and trousers and declines a glass of mint tea. "I've been drinking tea all day."

Kusum is one of 12 activists explaining how they came to be interested in fair trading in a new book published by the Fair Trade Co./Global Village, "Voices of Fair Trade." In the preface, readers are informed that Fair Trade gives back pride and dignity to artisans and farmers through earning a living rather than receiving charity. This not only empowers food, clothing and craft producers, but also empowers us -- the people who are buying the products.

Born in the Himalayas, Kusum moved to the city after marriage and had two children, now aged 13 and 9. "My life was pleasant, and it would have been so easy to stay that way. I was doing graduate computer work, but during the break after my second daughter was born, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable."

Secure inside her air-conditioned car, she became increasingly aware of the poverty on the streets around. "It had always been there. But I had taken it for granted before. Now every time I stopped at traffic lights, I was besieged by half-naked women and children begging for food and money, while their menfolk sat around getting drunk. Unable to meet these women's eyes, I would often turn the car around and go home, too disturbed to make my lunch date, or whatever."

Having begun to think about the gap between rich and poor, the haves and have-nots, she found little respite at home either. Her house helper had jobs at half a dozen different locations, and her own family to care for at the end of the day, yet earned a paltry 2,000 rupees ($43) a month.

"I realized that young girls are especially unsafe," Kusum adds. "Unscrupulous adults organize them to beg and prostitute themselves. I had daughters. I could relate."

In 1998 she decided to try somehow to empower poor women, who could be better relied on to spend money on feeding their children rather than drinking it away. "Having made that decision, the universe began to support me. Money began to come from the most unexpected directions. I met people who offered help."

During a meditation session -- Kusum has always practiced yoga -- she saw herself dropping into New Delhi's Museum of Modern Art. Taking the hint, she did just that, and ended up taking a workshop with her sister, then a journalist with the Times of India. "There were just two places left when we applied. It's only in hindsight that things fall into place."

This is how she came to meet 90-year-old Doofan Rafai, the grandfather of India's natural dyeing tradition. "He had so much passion and energy." Excited by what she saw and learned, she enrolled for a course at the government-sponsored Weavers Service Center. Sadly, this turned out to be a big hoax. "It needs to change. I was sat down to grind fruit and seeds to extract their dyes for days on end, and yes, I did do it, so maybe I did gain something. But it was their way of trying to put me off, shut me up, and I don't see the point of that."

There was a book she wanted to borrow, and everyone stood in her way. It took her a month to smuggle it out, photocopy every page and get it back onto the shelf. Now the author, professor M.L. Gulrajani, is her guru.

Soon after, she and her family traveled for 18 days by road from northern India to the south. "My children were needing me less, and I could see it was time to do something more with my life. What I found were weavers -- fantastic weavers desperately trying to make a living in tiny villages, just as their ancestors had done for generations before, but often being exploited by large contractors from the cities."

Back in New Delhi, her father-in-law (usually very parsimonious) came up with space in his factory to set up looms. "We began with just a few older men -- storehouses of knowledge. Then other weavers began to turn up. I don't know where they came from or how they heard about us, but as I said, the universe is generous. Now MURA (Music of the Rural Arts) Collective employs 12 weavers full-time and 13 to 15 part-timers. We also work with a community of 'shibori' dyers on the outskirts of the city."

MURA produces fabrics to order for FAB India, a large company run by a young American that specializes in hand-loomed products. Normally weavers earn very little, but MURA was given its first order at the prices Kusum quoted.

"The bottom line is profit, and there are many synthetic natural-dye look-alikes around. Somehow we have to keep our quality up and prices competitive."

Kusum admits that the MURA Collective still had a way to go to stand on its own feet, but the order from Tokyo gives her enormous confidence. "Safia (Safia Minney, president of the Fair Trade Co./Global Village) visited us last year through the auspices of professor Gulrajani, and we worked on designs together. She knows what sells here, we don't. This whole trip has been eye-opening."

At MURA, staffers never think about loose threads in a bolt of cloth, but here they are perceived as faults. "It's hard to believe that people take quality so seriously. In general, people don't want to sell to Japan; there are too many problems. I feel lucky to have teamed up with fair traders who can offer guidance and support from a strong ethical base."

The garments available through the People Tree shop, or the new Fair Trade/Global Village catalog, are woven from hand-spun cotton or silk, and richly colored with lac, cutch, catechu, myrobala and indigo -- all natural animal and plant extracts.

At which point Safia's attention is drawn by the lovely pale indigo and natural colored ikat of Kusum's shirt. The fabric would look great made up into duvet covers, they quickly agree.

Look out for such a product, maybe, next year?