PfC’s main goal is economic independence for women. We believe this is crucial to achieve the UN’s sustainability goals. To create jobs, we collaborate with private businesses. In this project, women in Ethiopia use their craftsmanship to produce beautiful, high-quality baskets that are now being sold at Mester Grønn. The collaboration started in 2018 with the goal of creating sustainable job opportunities and developing a transparent value chain for basket production. Women, the vast majority of them single mothers, now have a good source of income and are better able to take care of themselves and their children.
PfC and Mester Grønn’s basket project has been named LEWUT, which is amharic for change. Mester Grønn has designed and ordered the baskets to be sold in the shops here in Norway, and PfC has engaged poor women in the town of Bahir Dar to produce the baskets.
Although Bahir Dar is known for its beautiful baskets, this is the first time the production is organized according to an industrial model.
– In the beginning, it was challenging that many of the women could neither read, write nor count. Since the baskets were to have a certain height and circumference, the women only had to try. Once the goals were set, production began, says Anne-Karin Nygård, CEO of PfC.
– The collaboration between PfC and Mester Grønn is groundbreaking work. It shows how the non-profit sector can take new paths. Mester Grønn has the expertise in baskets and flowers. They know what they want. PfC has local knowledge, can realize the order at the grassroots and ensure that the women have decent work – that’s why we succeed !, Nygård concludes.
In 2021, the baskets have a new design and come in different sizes. Together with green plants, they will light up in the winter darkness. By buying the baskets, you are helping women to emerge from poverty.
