About Us
ReOrient was created by Michelle Oser and Ian Small. For almost 20 years, we have been working in a variety of countries around the world with international non-governmental organizations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Oxfam. Ian started out as a logistician with MSF during the first Bush war in Iraq and went on to manage a number of country programs in the former Soviet Union. His passion was the Aral Sea, an area that is prophetic in its symbolism of what happens with then environment shuts down. Before "retiring" from humanitarian work, he managed to be the first person to arrive in Aceh, Indonesia for Oxfam following the tsunami. He went on to manage for almost 3 years, what was the largest NGO program responding to the tsunami. Michelle found herself behind a camera wherever we went doing everything from producing training videos for health care workers about tuberculosis, to a David Suzuki documentary on the Aral Sea, to Burmese refugees in Thailand or victims of the tsunami in Indonesia. With our children, we led a passionate life being involved in projects that fulfilled our commitment to populations in danger and the environment around them.
When it came time to come back to Canada, we decided to get involved in a business that would meet our cool and creative criteria and stand to our human and environmental values. FSC reclaimed teak wood came naturally to our mind, as it preserves forests (which has all sorts of positive implications), provides jobs to local artisans and has both a history and a permanence about it. When we met the people at d-Bodhi who shared our interests and had gorgeous products for market, we felt comfortable to enter into business. Although in some respects it is a new adventure for both of us, we are encountering a fascinating learning curve as we try to bring in our humanist and environmental values into the mix, in order to bring you a product we can feel proud and happy about.
The name ReOrient was inspired by the last book written by our dear friend, Andre Gunder Frank, sadly and always missed.
