In January 2008, Peta Hall, a volunteer from Canada, helped Village Volunteers establish a textile cooperative called the Dzidefo Women’s Cooperative. (Dzidefo means “there is hope”.) Based in Kpando Village in the Volta region of Ghana, the cooperative consists of 5 hard-working women who use locally designed and printed, traditional Ghanaian fabric to create toddler clothing and home accessories.
Originally from Zimbabwe, Peta reached a point in her life that she felt she needed to “give back to Africa in a concrete way.” Within five weeks of being in Ghana, Peta had organized the five seamstresses that make up the co-op.
Their set hours were 10 am to 3 pm but they voluntarily arrived at 8.30 and left at 4.30! I wanted them to learn business skills as well, so they are able to keep records, open a bank account, run meetings, record minutes, and keep the books. They were such a joy to work with, hardworking, happy, interactive, and determined. I feel very inspired by them. They are tremendous women.”
The women work out of the Ryvanz-Mia Orphanage and have been developing the “knowledge and skills needed to produce work for the export market” Peta says.
From Ghana to Seattle, another volunteer, Nora Laughlin has created an online business to help support the Dzidefo Women’s Cooperative. A single mom and student at University of Washington, Bothell, Nora was originally involved with Village Volunteers to raise money to fund a ceramic water project run by a women’s pottery collective for the community of Kiminini, Kenya. “I gradually became introduced to many different ways in which VV is helping the world’s poor” and “the emphasis placed on the empowerment of women was especially close to my heart.”
After being inspired by the Dzidefo co-op, Nora created a business called Sustainable Bebe. The mission is simple, “Ethical. Affordable. Beautiful.” The online clothing store is “committed to carrying ethically produced high quality fashion for babies, and children and accessories for the home” says Nora.
Nora’s commitment towards these five women “is strong” and her goal “by the end of the first year is to make one large order every month so that the women can achieve an adequate and sustainable income… Being able to provide a good life for one’s family is the goal of most parents, I know because it is something that I think about daily. Being able to achieve this goal is empowering and fulfilling, and can aid in ending the cycle of poverty.”
The first major shipment of the D.W.C.’s merchandise will be arriving in August and “that is when the real work for me begins” says Nora. At some point Sustainable Bebe plans to reinvest some of its profits back into VV’s community partners in Ghana. Nora would especially like to provide more assistance to the children of the Ryvanz-Mia Orphanage, the base from which the co-op operates.
For more information on both sides of this project, visit Sustainable Bebe and Dzidefo Women’s Cooperative.