INDEGO AFRICA

Indego Africa was founded in 2007 by father and son duo, Matt and Tom Mitro. The Mitros lived in Africa for 11 years while Matt was growing up and were continually struck by the incredible talent and entrepreneurial spirit of the artisan women they met there. They were also struck by a glaring problem: these women, despite their remarkable skills, were living in abject poverty – struggling to get by without markets to sell their goods or the education needed to run their businesses. Indego Africa was created to address these issues of access and opportunity. Today, we partner with more than 800 female artisans across 22 cooperatives in Rwanda helping them to lift themselves and their families out of poverty through economic empowerment and education. We provide opportunities for our artisan partners to earn sustainable, fair-trade income by selling their handcrafted goods around the world. We build global market demand for their products by combining traditional Rwandan craft and artistry with modern designs to create beautiful, one-of-a-kind items (some of which are now sold in stores such as Anthropologie, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and Eileen Fisher). We then pool the profits from sales, along with grants and donations, to fund education programs for our artisan partners. By investing in women's education, we seek to drive long-term, self-sustaining change in the lives of our partners and in their communities. We offer a range of business and leadership training courses that teach our artisan partners how to run and grow their own enterprises. Through these programs, women develop highly practical and valuable skills, such as budgeting, banking, marketing, and managing a supply chain, to name only a few examples. Equipped with these tools, our partners are better able to achieve financial independence and thrive as confident businesswomen, entrepreneurs, and leaders.