African designer of bottle bags helped by new organisation
An African designer of home-made bottle bags is causing quite a stir in the design world thanks to the aid and support of Indego Africa, a new organisation devoted to helping African women raise themselves out of poverty by opening up fresh opportunities to them in foreign export markets.
Indego Africa formed a partnership with Cooperative de Couture de Kicukiro (“Cocoki”), a Rwandan company who specialise in creating high-quality bottle bags based on traditional African designs. Emelienne Nyiramana, Cocoki’s Treasurer and Master Seamstress, is a mother of five who created her company three years ago.
From earning a mere 25 cents a day in the beginning, thanks to the support network Indego Africa was able to supply her with, Emelienne now sells her unique creations all over the world, even earning a feature in the prestigious Food and Wine Magazine’s “Best of Wine” issue in April 2010.
Under the terms of the partnership with Indego Africa, Cocoki is run on a non-profit basis, ploughing all of the money they earn back into the business in order to expand into new markets and provide more jobs for the local community.
Indego Africa is “an innovative non-profit social enterprise – built on core values of transparency and good governance”, and the company hopes to replicate Cocoki’s success with other businesses in the years to come.
