Celebrating International Women´s day: 100 new trees in rural Kenya

by Mifuko Mifuko
March 06, 2020
2 min read

Small scale farming is the cultural and economical backbone of rural Kenya. As recent years climate change has made the farming more difficult and uncertain, Mifuko’s artisans are getting the very much needed income from weaving baskets and bags when the farming work allows.

Mifuko employs almost 700 ladies in the rural Kenya

To celebrate International Women's Day 2020 we will plant 100 more trees to the farms of the Mifuko’s artisans. The trees provide shade for the fields, animals and farmers helping to stop erosion while acting as carbon sinks for decades to come.

Design empowers women

Our baskets and bags are created by using traditional weaving skills and the knowledge of weaving passes from one generation to another. Mifuko aims to see the next generation of artisans being part of our Mifuko family.

Economic empowerment

Rural women are key agents for achieving the transformational economic, environmental and social changes required for sustainable development. But limited access to credit, health care and education are among the many challenges they face, which are further aggravated by the global food and economic crises and climate change.

Empowering them is key not only to the well-being of individuals, families and rural communities, but also to overall economic productivity, given women’s large presence in the agricultural workforce worldwide.

In developing countries women continue to carry out a disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work., that includes arduous tasks such as water collection, for which women and girls are responsible in 80 per cent of households that do not have access to water on the premises.

Source: https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/rural-women

Fair Trade is also Gender Equity

In Mifuko we make sure that women living in rural areas can benefit from trade and finance and market their goods worldwide. Artisans belong into self help groups that bring independency and social security for the members.

The fair trade movement promotes transparency and sustainable development by offering better trading conditions and securing rights of producers and workers.

The organization has a clear policy and plan to promote gender equality that ensures that women as well as men have the ability to gain access to the resources that they need to be productive and also the ability to influence the wider policy, regulatory, and institutional environment that shapes their livelihoods and lives.

Source: https://wfto.com/who-we-are#10-principles-of-fair-trade