Business Week Interview

Janice Ashby started the paper making / paper crafting initiatives in 2003. She is founder of Eco Africa Social Ventures the non profit that raises funds for the crafting artisans of Zimbabwe.

In 2003 New York based designer Ashby started a social enterprise in Zimbabwe. The concept was to partner with women living in poverty to create a crafting infrastructure through which to empower them with income generating skills. The program offers a peaceful place where they arrive each day for craft skills-training, management training, paper-crafting, equipment with which to work efficiently, design direction for the products, and the finding of customers in the developed world. The focus of the crafting is handmade paper making and paper crafting. A hot lunch is provided for all who work on campus.

Many of the women who are trained became the trainers and a nurturing environment exists where the women have become a family and are able to support each other emotionally through the difficult times that have evolved.

From 2006 the demise of the people accelerated as the country sank deeper into the abyss of poverty and disease which spread fast across the rural areas and into the high density township of Chitungwiza where most of Eco Africa’s artisans live.

With the devastated economy eroding many of the municipal infrastructures the road is far from easy for the women and their families, and through necessity in 2007 Ashby started a non profit Eco Africa Social Ventures in New York to support them as food became scarce and the challenges they faced at home began effecting their ability to continue their work.

As fundraising became Ashby’s focus, sales of the artisans’ products needed to continue to be expanded. As EASV began its work Helping Hands For Africa was started up by a long time friend and supporter to become the sister for-profit initiative focusing on sales of the products and to become the job creation component. It is a social enterprise dedicated to expanding the crafting collectives through sales of their products and to enable more and more women to become crafters and earn money with which to care for their families. The two organizations work hand in hand to sustain and develop the paper-crafting cooperatives.