Monday, July 18, 2011
Photo
In this photo taken June 16, Sinead Fyda poses with purses created by Tanzanian women in Hilliard, Ohio. Fyda lives in Tanzania up to eight months at a time while developing Jishike Social Couture, a business in which 21 women create handmade purses and bags that she sells when back in Columbus.
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
Within two months, Sinead Fyda traded a Madison Avenue office for a classroom with a dirt floor, no water, no electricity — and six desks for 80 kindergartners.
She had quit a stressful job at Ralph Lauren in New York to embark on a three-week volunteer teaching trip to Tanzania — a refreshing break, she hoped, from a seven-year career as a buyer in the demanding fashion industry.
Yet, in the village of Rau near Mount Kilimanjaro, sleeping under mosquito nets and bathing with cold water were proving to be overwhelming as a lifestyle.
Then, she went on a safari. Looking out the window of a Jeep, she was struck by the beauty of the country and by the glimpses of villages where poverty seemed inescapable. I’m meant to be seeing this, she thought.
Four years later, Fyda lives in Tanzania up to eight months at a time while developing Jishike Social Couture, a business in which 21 women create handmade purses and bags that she sells when in Columbus.
With partial proceeds going to the women, Fyda, 32, wants to instill in them the skills and confidence to make their own living. Many are single mothers with multiple children. At the time the business began, most of the women had little income or education.
Jishike means “Hold onto your strength” in Swahili.
After her initial trip in 2007, Fyda spent 18 months traveling from Columbus to Tanzania and back.
As the head women’s accessories buyer for Ralph Lauren, Fyda had grown tired of the hectic lifestyle.
Her mother was initially alarmed by the decision to leave her career: Sinead, after graduating from Boston University, had worked her way to the respected position through jobs at Neiman Marcus and Christian Dior.
The idea for Jishike stemmed from a visit to the mother of Sinead’s boyfriend, a Tanzanian who owns a safari company. When Fyda saw a doily she had made, she asked if she would teach the women — and her as well — to sew and crochet.
Since the fall of 2009, the women of Jishike have been making pouches, clutches and bags from African fabrics, beads and stones. Fyda designs the accessories, provides the materials and pays the women upon the sale of their pieces.
Although Fyda has sold about 500 bags through trunk shows and the website she launched in March, the business, not yet profitable, continues to drain her savings.
To date, the top earners in Jishike have made up to $3,000 — when, in jobs such as selling fruit at the market, their weekly income might have averaged $10.
On the company website, customers can read about the women and learn how far their money can go: By selling a $45 pouch, for example, Mama Naomi can send one of her children to school for a year.
The women see Fyda as a friend but also as a messiah, said her Swahili tutor, Ali Skandor, who visited the Jishike members last year during a trip with his students from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware.
For more information, go to www.jishikesocialcouture.com.