February 19, 2018

This is: Indego Africa, 10 Years of Success

Indego Africa is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering artisan women in Africa through employment opportunities and education. Our mission? To help artisans lift themselves and their families out of poverty and become empowered businesswomen.

“I’m especially proud of the team culture we’ve built among and between Indego employees in Rwanda, Ghana, and New York.”

Indego Africa have partnered with groups of women in Rwanda and Ghana to sell products that are designed by their Creative Director in New York City and handmade in Africa—combining traditional techniques, local materials, and genuine artisanal skill.

They provide their partners with fair, consistent income for their artistry, and invest all of our profits from sales, coupled with grants and donations, into business education and vocational training programs for the artisans who handcraft our products and the youth in their communities.

At  Indego Africa, they believe that women and youth around the globe have the capacity, creativity, and determination to uplift themselves, their families, and their communities—all they need are the resources. Through education and access to markets, their partners develop the knowledge and skills they need to grow their own enterprises, become confident entrepreneurs and leaders, and create brighter futures for themselves and their communities.

“Indego Africa partners with over 500 women from across 13 partner cooperatives in Rwanda. Each woman survived unimaginable horrors during the 1994 genocide and has continued to lead a difficult life of poverty and struggle.”

Many are widows, suffer from HIV/AIDs and/or lingering psychological trauma, lack formal schooling or the means to enroll their children in formal schooling, and have inadequate food security, housing, and healthcare. In our initial social impact assessment, we discovered that 93% of our artisan partners had previously earned less than $1.00 per day. This amount often must feed and house their entire family, which includes an average of 5.5 dependents as many care for orphans and elderly relatives in addition to their own children. Each year, IA conducts a robust annual social impact assessment, which compiles developmental data on our artisan partners that includes both quantitative metrics such as basic demographics, income, education levels, and food security and qualitative indicators such as in-depth self-perception. IA’s female artisan partners have seen dramatic improvements in earned income, food security, access to water, access to schooling for themselves and their children, and bank accounts. Highlights from our fifth Social Impact Report include: • Earned Income: In 2012, 76% of our female artisan partners earned more than $1.00 per day, compared to 7% in 2008. • Food Security: In 2012, 74% of our female artisan partners reported that their families never ran out of food, compared to 5% in 2008. • Housing: In 2012, 76% of our female artisan partners owned their homes, compared to 41% in 2008. • Health Access: In 2012, 81% of our female artisan partners had regular access to medical care, compared to 26% in 2008.

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