On a recent visit to Kisii, Kenya, we asked several of our students what they were most proud of. Some said they were proud of their families. Others said they were proud of a recent soccer match, award, or test score. But almost all the students we asked said that they were proud to be an Ajiri student.
We work hard to give our students an education. We sell tea and coffee to provide our students with school fees, books and uniforms. But what we can’t buy our students is a sense of self-worth. That alone comes through kindness. It comes with community. It comes with love.
Here in the U.S. we have all of you—our customers—behind us. We have customers send us e-mails telling us how delicious the tea is. We have customers telling us how beautiful the boxes are. We have people sending notes to tell us that what we are doing is worthwhile and something we should be proud of. And that sense of pride, of self-worth, and of purpose gets carried all the way to Kenya.
As our students have grown up, a remarkable thing has happened. When asked what unites them on the recent student-mentoring trip, our students didn’t say that they were all orphans. Instead, Shilla answered confidently, “We are all part of the Ajiri family.”
Going back to school for our students isn’t just about joining a new grade, but about joining a whole new community.
Thank you for the love, for the comments on our Facebook page, for the nice notes. Thank you all for creating such a wonderful community in which our business and our kids can grow and thrive.
Asante sana,
Kate, Sara, Regina, and Duncan
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Angela, Wesley, and Damacline were now hopelessly off course. They had managed to scale that final fence and were walking down toward a forest. I wanted to run to them, set them on the right course, explain scale and direction and how they should put the compass on the map. But instead I watched them from the top of the hill. They were now making pretend owl calls to each other, quite literally hooting from one group to another and then bursting into laughter.
See, there is this tip-toeing around issues in business. No company should align itself too "political" for fear of alienating customers. But to have opinions and emotions—well, that's just human. As a society, we've become too corporatized—too sanitized to believe that companies shouldn't have a voice. Of course politics affect our business. Tariffs on tea! The war in Iran means higher costs of shipping our tea. The elimination of USAID and its direct impact on our community in Kenya. But more so than something directly affecting us and our business, we still care about policies that affect our neighbors and people across the world.
At Ajiri, we feel so lucky to be on this earth at the same time as all of you. Your purchase of tea holds a lot of that elusive power of art. Sure, your purchase is the transference of physical money that goes to support women and children. But your purchases of tea, time and time again, transfers this feeling of belief. You believe in these women. You believe in these kids. You believe that the world can be a better place.
Kate Holby
Author