Gifts that give back

by Shopify API
November 09, 2021
3 min read

Author Mifuko

Looking for a sustainable and fair trade Christmas gift? This year, how about choosing Gifts that Give Back from Mifuko? Our handmade products bring joy and improve the well-being of the artisans who made them.

Aiding through trade

Our mission is to bring sustainable and stable income to as many artisans as possible in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia. Handmade production supports artisans that live in rural areas and don’t have a possibility to educate themselves, sometimes they don’t even have access to electricity in their communities. Work that we provide gives the artisans the chance to earn a better living by using the skills that have passed down from generation to another, and at the same time keeps the local handcraft tradition vivid and alive.

Giving back to the refugees

Mifuko’s product range and mission are based on the ideology of giving back to the artisans. One great example of Gifts that Give Back is our beautifully hand-crafted wood ornament collection. Through Made51, Mifuko collaborates with Kapya Kitungwa who came to Kenya as a refugee from Congo and founded his workshop to employ other refugees living in Nairobi too. His workshop produces Mifuko's wooden star ornaments, unpainted birds and cooking utensils. Carved from fallen branches of the jacaranda tree, each is carefully finished without any chemical treatment, bringing out the natural colour of the wood while ensuring safety in any setting.

Made51’s mission is to bring beautiful refugee-made products to a global market. Made51 has been brought to life by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting right, and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people.

Giving back to the artisans

An essential part of Mifuko is Mifuko Trust, a non-profit organization was founded in 2012 by Mifuko founders Minna Impiö and Mari Martikainen. Mifuko provides work to the artisans and Mifuko Trust supports the realisation of projects that benefit the whole community

Mifuko Trust’s mission is to improve the livelihoods of local women groups, support sustainable development and achieve an international exchange of know-how and promote the handicraft tradition of the local community. Empowering women to support holistic community growth is very important in the developing countries. Mifuko Trust’s focus is on tackling poverty by empowering families and communities through projects that improve their well-being in the rural region of Machakos, Kenya.

Mifuko Trust has carried out many small projects in Machakos - planting trees, providing solar power lamps, buying domestic animals for families to name a few. Mifuko Trust’s first government-funded project Wash and Grow! was launched in the beginning of 2021. The project is a three-year undertaking to build ecological dry toilets and provide training in hygiene, sanitation, and entrepreneurship for the communities of Makueni, south-east Kenya.

If you would like to give non-material gift to your loved ones this year that give back, there are many options in Mifuko Trust program to choose from. We can guarantee that your gift will bring joy to our artisans and their families in Machakos!

Always fair, always sustainable

Mifuko has been certified member of WFTO, World fair trade organization since 2014. What does it mean in our everyday work? WTFO explains it well on their webpage:

“Fair Trade Enterprises are born for impact. They are social enterprises that fully practice Fair Trade. They impact 1m livelihoods, 74% of whom are women. These enterprises transform local communities, pioneer upcycling, empower women, champion refugee rights and practice organic farming. Their impact goes far and wide and the WFTO is their global community.

These are the enterprises of the new economy. They support and trade with each other, speak up collectively, meet regularly and collaborate at trade fairs. It's a movement, a community, and an idea.

Fair Trade is more than just trading, it is a vision of business and trade that put people and planet before profit. It fights poverty, climate change, gender inequality and injustice and is a proof of concept that showcases the enterprise models of the new economy”

Source: WFTO – Our impact (2021)

We are so proud to be a part of this revolution and new economy movement! Fair trade can really make a difference, if industrialized countries do more to open their markets, developing countries can increase their exports by many billions of dollars per year.

Small choices can make a huge difference, gifts that give back are a great example of that!