When we were young(er) and more naive, we thought we could change the world. So we started a company to do just that. We read that women in developing nations tend to reinvest over 90% of their earnings back into their families and communities. So we reasoned we should start a company to create employment for women. Together with our mother, we started Ajiri Tea in 2009.
Ajiri means "to employ" in Swahili and we employ women to handcraft the packaging for our tea boxes using dried bark from banana trees. In the 14 years we've been in business, the women have invested in their families and communities. They've bought land and livestock, dug wells, paid for their own children to go to school, replaced their thatched roofs with sheet metal, and gotten electricity.
But despite all of these remarkable economic changes, women are still up against years of culture. They are still doing the majority of the cleaning, the cooking, the farm work, the childcare. Now we look at that figure of women reinvesting 90% of their earnings back into their communities a bit differently. Where are they making space for themselves? In that 10% that is left over?
As we send 100% of our profits back to pay school fees for orphans, we've made a conscious effort to sponsor both boys and girls. Perhaps naively once again, we believe that we can chip away at the gender imbalance by teaching young boys about women's healthcare, about consent, all while building an Ajiri scholar alumni network in which our boys treat the Ajiri girl scholars as peers and equals.
It is too early to tell if these boys will grow up to be men who cook dinner and fetch water and treat women with equality. Stay tuned for the next 15 years of Ajiri Tea development. This is a long-term company with long-term visions for social change. Equality wasn't built overnight. But it is being built through your support and through lots of cups of tea and coffee.
Thank you for sticking and sipping with us,
Kate, Sara, and Ann
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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 emotionsâwell, that's just human. As a society, we've become too corporatizedâtoo 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.Â
Kate Holby
Author