who we have trained up through the scheme

Instead of using bows and arrows to take from the rich and give to the poor, she uses the money spent by wealthy people on her expensive handmade pieces to help some of the world's most disadvantaged communities.

With her jewellery selling for as much as ￡70,000 per item, London-based Pippa is in demand with fashion houses like Gucci, Chloe and Nicole Farhi.

Her designs are worn by celebrities including actress Nicole Kidman, and Pippa attends fashion weeks around the world. Yet in stark contrast to such glitz and glamour, she also inhabits a completely different world.

"Just as I was starting the business full-time 10 years ago, I had spent a summer working with Burmese refuges in Thailand, who were just full of horror stories, horrendous testimonies," she says.

"And I remember coming back to Europe to go to the Paris fashion week, and just being struck dumb by the contrast. I just couldn't reconcile the two completely different realities."

Instead of using bows and arrows to take from the rich and give to the poor, she uses the money spent by wealthy people on her expensive handmade pieces to help some of the world's most disadvantaged communities.

With her jewellery selling for as much as ￡70,000 per item, London-based Pippa is in demand with fashion houses like Gucci, Chloe and Nicole Farhi.

Her designs are worn by celebrities including actress Nicole Kidman, and Pippa attends fashion weeks around the world. Yet in stark contrast to such glitz and glamour, she also inhabits a completely different world.

"Just as I was starting the business full-time 10 years ago, I had spent a summer working with Burmese refuges in Thailand, who were just full of horror stories, horrendous testimonies," she says.

"And I remember coming back to Europe to go to the Paris fashion week, and just being struck dumb by the contrast. I just couldn't reconcile the two completely different realities."

Today Pippa gets 70% of her jewellery made in India, "the world's gold jewellery capital", with the profits she makes from this main part of her business being invested into special collections made in workshops in countries such as Afghanistan, Kenya, Panama and Bolivia from locally sourced materials.

While Pippa admits she has a profitable business and good lifestyle, in all countries she pays at least a 10% premium to ensure working standards are as high as possible, both in sourcing the metals and precious stones she uses, and for the workers who then make the jewellery.

In Bolivia her jewellery is made from gold produced in a mine that is run as a co-operative, and is working towards Fairtrade accreditation through it being run in as an environmentally friendly a way as possible.

In marked contrast, Pippa's Kenya-made jewellery is all made from recycled glass and scrap metal sourced from Nairobi's largest waste tip.

Working with the Made charity, 160 people who live in a slum next to the site are involved in the manufacture of the jewellery.

"They live in completely inhuman conditions, but they are really industrious, going through the garbage seeing what they can sell," says Pippa.

"I know we are only helping a very small number, but it is amazing to see the difference we can make - it is all about giving these people the confidence of having a skill and being able to contribute.

"Within a couple of years, many people who we have trained up through the scheme leave to start their own micro-businesses. That is particularly pleasing."

With two Pippa Small boutiques, one in London and the other in Los Angeles, she plans to continue to grow both the business and her work with disadvantaged groups.