Giving Back
Women Supporting Women
2014
In August 2014, we launched our pilot program of artisan training and fashion production program in Cape Coast, Ghana. We hired and trained 8 women, employing them as we tested our model of creating sustainable employment for West African women in the field of fashion. The women were trained to produce our garments with intensive hand-beading. We paid the women fair-trade wages, increasing their income an average of 91%.
2016
In October 2016, we launched a pilot program in Nigeria that employed 4 female owned production facilities paying them fair-trade wages. Our efforts paid the women 259% above the fair-trade wage minimum, and 298% above the national minimum wage.
2017
In June 2017, we traveled to the Maasai Mara in Kenya, to work with 8 Maasai women who we trained to hand-bead on fabric. One of the most iconic and well-known tribes in all of Africa, Maasai women have been beading on intricate jewelry for generations. We taught them the softer hand needed to bead on fabric. We paid them fair-trade wages that equaled approximately twice what a man with a full-time job in tourism would make in their region of Kenya. That's #GirlPower.