MAGIC CARPET

Written on September 1, 2011 at 12:34 pm
By Doris Athineos

Brad Pitt, Jay-Z and Beyoncé walk on silk, cashmere and wool rugs designed by Carini Lang.  If you’re lucky, you can walk across your own original Carini Lang hand-made carpet for the price of a $25 raffle ticket. The raffle raises funds for Goodweave, an organization working to end child labor in the carpet industry. Made in Nepal, the bedroom-size carpet retails for $6,534.

The organization raises money to rescue, educate and care for victims of child labor. Look for the Goodweave label when shopping for hand-knotted rugs to insure that children were not exploited. “The label signifies that child labor was not used in the rug-making process,” says April Thompson. “We conduct random surprise inspections of companies whose rugs we certify.

This summer a 10-year-old girl, Nirmala, was rescued from child labor during a Goodweave inspection.  Goodweave is now paying for Nirmala to catch up on her education at a GoodWeave center, as well as contributing to her other schooling.

BY NICOLE BITETTE