SHAKOSHI !

Carrying your things to new places…..

             with flavor, flair and friends!

About Us

DR Congo, outside Bukavu….she had a rebellion on her hands. The ladies (and men) stood around, some with arms crossed, others in dismay and defeat, but all with the same question, “why can’t we take our machines away…” 

 

The cooperative was in crisis. Formed to help the new tailoring graduates learn some marketing and basic business skills before taking their machines home, the cooperative was not the problem. It was the lack of market. They had spent the past couple of months making school uniforms (a requirement in many Africa countries) and now the most the locals can and will pay is  .10 cents above the cost to make them…..

 

Their thinking….if they took the machines home at least they could sit at home and make no money. But the reality is that the value of the machine would in a short time beg putting it up for sale…and then she’d be back to zero.

 

What to do…….

 

 

 

Purses!

 

 

 

 

We found a model, they made some fabulous samples and voila! Shakoshi.com was born….now the women (and men) are making a living and moving full steam ahead………And an increasing number of other local tailors have been able to join the team along with the many cloth merchant mamas who now find a ready market for their cloth.

 

But that’s just the beginning. We’re hoping lots of other cooperatives in the Great Lakes region of Africa will be able to display and sell their purses, bags and packs through shakoshi.com

 

It’s a big step but e-marketing is giving them a venue and shop-front they’ve never had access to before…helping them to compete with the big guys while keeping the profit in their pockets not in those of the many middle men along the way.

 

We hope you’ll help us grow.