Alicia Wallace On Connecting African Artisans To Broader Market Opportunities

Alicia Wallace is the COO & co-founder of All Across Africa, the largest artisan employer in Africa.

Her company’s consumer brand, Kazi, features a range of sustainable, chic home décor items – all made from natural African fibers and organic dyes by rural artisans in Rwanda, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania. Through the process, the artists improve their economic situation and gain the dignity and sense of accomplishment that comes with it – a life-changing impact for thousands of families across Africa.

Alicia discusses how creating equitable marketplaces and supply chains ensures positive social outcomes for disadvantaged communities.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, could you please share a bit about your background and what led to your work in social enterprise?

[Alicia Wallace] - I studied economics at university and had a big travel bucket list. After graduating from university, I wanted to see the world. Africa, the continent was on my list after Antarctica, and I was invited to a volunteer trip in West Africa with a team of doctors and nurses. It was there at this medical clinic that I was checking in patients, and witnessing atrocities that I couldn't fathom seeing in my hometown in the U.S. I grew up having access to basic and advanced medical care but sitting in that rural African community I was seeing people and children who had fallen into fires but didn't have proper medical supplies to take care of their burns. It was heartbreaking. I came back with a heavy heart and really strong conviction that I needed to do something, and it was through that conviction I ended up finding my business partner, this path to creating my first non-profit educating kids to go to school and then ultimately creating All Across Africa and the business model that it is today.

As the Chief Operations Officer and a Co-founder of All Across Africa and Kazi, can you discuss how these enterprises are creating a social change?

At All Across Africa, we create small businesses in rural areas. These are men and women that learn how to become a president, vice president, secretary or a treasurer of a business. We train them in a cooperative model where they learn these leadership skills and then they create a local business in their community. It's a tax paying, registered business where they start to source materials. We conduct training for them and for their group members, and then we place orders with them.

What's really important about our enterprise is that we create everyday jobs, so a consistent demand for these artisans, and we're training people in a skill set that is desired by the rest of the world.

We produce mostly home decor, but we also produce high end handbags amongst other things. Everything is made from natural fibres in the homes of people in these rural communities throughout Africa. We're creating social change by employing thousands of men and women across rural areas in Africa and giving them the tools, the education and then the access to these marketplaces.

How do global marketplaces and supply chains which are often dominated by larger multinational corporations disadvantage smaller producers coming from having reduced socioeconomic power?

Typically, we're seeing a lack of unionisation, and so large supply chains or companies are able to take advantage of individual producers that aren't organised or formalised. I think what's interesting and different about All Across Africa is that we have unionised them, but not in a bad way. We’ve managed to do this in a really good way where large companies are able to access individual goods, but not at the cost of the producers not having their voice or say on what their time and materials cost or being able to produce on an order at scale for large retail partners. I think often unions or large-scale groups get a bad name, but it's one way to protect against disadvantaging producers and instead actually connecting them in a large scale and sizeable way to meaningful work.

What opportunities do networks like All Across Africa and Kazi provide for both the African communities that are crafting these valuable products but also the consumer?

Our company is all about creating connections. We're creating connections between these African communities and consumers. I love how you phrased the question about the value created between both. For the African producers, it's everyday jobs. It's a wage that they can count on. They know that they're going to be able to send their kids to school this month and the next. This isn't just something that comes and goes with the season, but it's consistent.

It's also about that leadership, so being able to provide them with not just the marketplace and access, but with a skill set and training that they can apply to other businesses and things that they're doing in their life as well.

They will know how to manage raw materials and resources, how to price things and how to manage logistics and supply chain. All of these are really great skill sets that can be applied to other areas of their life in their communities. Beyond that, there's a sense of dignity given, so when we show up there is meaning in our work. When we're needed, when we know that we're valuable, there's a sense of pride that we as humans have.

That's been a really interesting shift in the dynamic for us, when we went from sponsoring kids to go to school (a handout non-profit method into creating jobs and livelihoods) to getting women to partner with us. They see themselves as partners with us, and they know that they're valuable, and without each other, we don't have this business together. There's this huge dependency on each other. Then, by being able to bring that to consumers, they're able to bring beautiful high-quality products into their home. Their natural fibres bringing the outdoors in are gorgeous and inspiring.

You can feel the energy that's been poured and birthed into these products as you place them in your home and life, but also each product comes with a story with the hang tag where you're able to learn about and engage with the producer who produced this product and changed your life.

There really is this reciprocal relationship between how the products are made in the home and then what they do for our homes globally as we decorate with them.

How should marketplace solutions like All Across Africa be monitored and assessed to ensure they're providing equitable outcomes for everybody involved?

I feel like there's always a third party needed, so an audit assessment or regulatory standard. We have a really amazing opportunity to partner with a non-profit organisation called Nest. They've created an artist and certification that assesses workplace conditions and fair wages. They have helped create a standardisation and calculator for time and material to ensure that fair wages are paid, and then they don't only come and audit you, but they provide a curriculum and a standard. They partner with you and actually train both your company and artisans on what workplace rights are and how in an artisan homeworker setting they can be maintained.

It's been really incredible to be a part of a non-profit that cares about the regulatory standards so much, but then is also working with you to make it better for everyone. Their whole intention isn't just to write a report, but really to see workplace conditions improve for all. Every single year that we're audited and assessed it gets more and more challenging. Our criteria gets more and more rigorous and more difficult over time, and that's just based on the expectation that we become better and better for people and for the planet as we grow as a company.

I feel like when we're out there preaching and saying we're taking care of people and the planet, we really need a third-party regulatory standard that can be measured.

This is an in-person audit, they come and spend hours and weeks assessing our supply chain with a certain translator. It's really incredible, and so that's how I feel like these marketplace solutions need to be held accountable.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across that are creating a positive social change?

I have some really good friends at a company called Someone Somewhere, they're working with artisans in Mexico. They have this amazing partnership with Delta Airlines right now where they're offering amenities kit (first in business class) made by artisans in Mexico. What I love so much about this is a large company is choosing to replace what's traditionally manufactured in Southeast Asia and move that opportunity to homeworking artisans in rural areas of Mexico. That's been a really inspiring one for us to get to see for the formalisation and global marketplace adoption for artisans.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?

When I was starting out on my travel journey, I was reading a lot of different books. The Blue Sweater was one of them, written by Jacqueline Novogratz . I feel like it's a good introduction to the global marketplace, how change happens and how we're all affected by each other. Also, it's about taking responsibility, acting and starting to put one foot in front of the other to do something. While there are a lot of interesting ideas out there, some things that I really resonate with and others that I don't, The Blue Sweater encouraged me to get out there and showed that there's no act too big or small to get started on now. I think that's a great place to start.