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Beautiful Curls line
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Alaffia School Desk Project
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Alaffia Maternal Health Project
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Alaffia Lotions
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Alaffia Cooperative
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Alaffia Bicycles Project
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Unloading the bikes
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Girls Receive their Bikes
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Girls with Their Bikes
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Togo Women
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Alaffia products
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Mothers, with their selfless love, have inspired much good in the world. Olowo-n’djo Tchala, owner of the natural beauty line, Alaffia, credits his mother for the inspiration behind his international business.
“When I was a child, I had to leave school to work with my mother on the farm,” says Olowo-n’djo Tchala, one of eight siblings. “It was there that I understood the issues the women go through in Western Africa. When I grew up, left Africa and attended University in the US, I felt I must do something for my mother and the other women.”
Olowo-n’djo Tchala recounts stories of his mother working long hours, but getting very little for her efforts. He was disturbed that Africa’s natural resources were unfairly traded in the global market.
In 1998, Olowo-n’djo and his wife, an American chemist, brainstormed ways to bring real economic opportunities to the women in his home country of Togo, while preserving the local culture. The husband/wife team established a co-op for the women with the goal of creating jobs that would pay fair wages.
But Olowo-n’djo’s initial idea, harvest natural resources like shea butter and sell it in bulk, didn’t achieve the desired objective. “The information about fair trade and the women don’t get all the way to customers when you’re selling bulk,” says Olowo-n’djo. “We wanted the general public to understand why it’s important to buy products from Africans at a fair price instead of sending relief.”
Olowo-n’djo says he quickly learned that people who buy bulk aren’t willing to pay a fair price for it. After struggling to keep their co-op afloat, he went back to the drawing board. The obvious answer: create a beauty line from their country’s natural resources and package it themselves.
Although Olowo-n’djo’s wife brought her knowledge of chemistry to the venture, there were other needs, like funding. They borrowed money and even asked relatives to put purchases on credit cards to get the business started.
In 2004, with a focus on sustainable practices and fair wages, Alaffia was born. Now came the difficult part. Labeling laws for selling cosmetics wasn’t something Olowo-n’djo had dealt with in the past. It was a challenge navigating through international laws.
He also found that Americans weren’t familiar with raw shea butter and its properties, which is the main ingredient in many of their products. If Americans knew about shea butter at all, they knew the refined, processed version sold in many Western stores.
Refined shea butter has been boiled and the butter is sometimes extracted through petrochemicals, eliminating most of the moisturizing properties that make shea such a valued commodity. Refined shea butter is white, while raw shea butter is a rich, buttery yellow. Americans had to be educated on these differences before Alaffia could secure sales.
The other ingredients in Afaffi’s products are simple and natural (like Baobab oil and Red Palm), sans the usual chemical cocktails found in much of mainstream products. Olowo-n’djo knows he could gain a larger profit by using cheaper synthetic ingredients, but he chooses not to.
“By doing the right thing by the women in West Africa, we have the responsibility to do right by the women in America,” says Olowo-n’djo. “It’s a moral thing for us. Not using those chemicals is the right thing to do. We know they are bad. Why would we put them in products and send them to families?”
Alaffia’s prices are far below that of many natural beauty brands found in the US, even though Alaffia is imported. Olowo-n’djo says their goal was never to get rich from their efforts, but to provide change for the women of Togo, and to make an excellent product that is accessible to those in the West who may not have a lot of money.
With 90% of the company’s profits going to operations, only 10% is available for long term community projects. But providing opportunity for women, and now young girls, is Alaffia’s mission. They find a way. Olowo-n’djo has seen his company provide 3,500 bicycles to girls in central Togo to ensure they get to school (sometimes ten miles or more from their homes). The dropout rate for young girls in this geographic location was 91% before Alaffia’s bicycle project. Now, the numbers are turned upside down – 90% of the girls stay in school.
In addition, more than 2,000 students have received much needed school supplies, and 740 women have received full pre-natal and delivery care (Pre-natal care is critical in Western Africa, as approximately 225 women and 1,200 newborns die each day from complications in childbirth).
Olowo-n’djo says Alaffia doesn’t have an advertising budget (they rely on word of mouth and bloggers). He doesn’t have a personal savings account. But Alaffia is debt-free (their initial business loans are all paid off) and he has seen his company accomplish it’s original goal: Helping his mom.
Want to help Alaffia in their mission? You can purchase their products online or at Whole Foods across the country. You can also donate here towards a bike for a child to get to school. Contact Alaffia for other opportunities to get involved.
And if you’d like to try Alaffia’s products, you can get a 20% discount by using the code HEALTHYBEAUTY at check out (good through August 22, 2011). It’s our way of saying, “Thanks” for reading our blog, and an encouragement for you to switch all of your products to healthier brands like Alaffia.
The discount code works at www.alaffia.com and www.beautifulcurls.com
No products or money were given for this article. It is strictly an editorial piece. We gave Alaffia a free ad space here on site because we believe in their mission.
Mothers, with their selfless love, have inspired much good in the world. Olowo-n’djo Tchala, owner of the natural beauty line, Alaffia, credits his mother for the inspiration behind his international business.
“When I was a child, I had to leave school to work with my mother on the farm,” says Olowo-n’djo Tchala, one of eight siblings. “It was there that I understood the issues the women go through in Western Africa. When I grew up, left Africa and attended University in the US, I felt I must do something for my mother and the other women.”
Olowo-n’djo Tchala recounts stories of his mother working long hours, but getting very little for her efforts. He was disturbed that Africa’s natural resources were unfairly traded in the global market.
In 1998, Olowo-n’djo and his wife, an American chemist, brainstormed ways to bring real economic opportunities to the women in his home country of Togo, while preserving the local culture. The husband/wife team established a co-op for the women with the goal of creating jobs that would pay fair wages.
But Olowo-n’djo’s initial idea, harvest natural resources like shea butter and sell it in bulk, didn’t achieve the desired objective. “The information about fair trade and the women don’t get all the way to customers when you’re selling bulk,” says Olowo-n’djo. “We wanted the general public to understand why it’s important to buy products from Africans at a fair price instead of sending relief.”
Olowo-n’djo says he quickly learned that people who buy bulk aren’t willing to pay a fair price for it. After struggling to keep their co-op afloat, he went back to the drawing board. The obvious answer: create a beauty line from their country’s natural resources and package it themselves.
Although Olowo-n’djo’s wife brought her knowledge of chemistry to the venture, there were other needs, like funding. They borrowed money and even asked relatives to put purchases on credit cards to get the business started.
In 2004, with a focus on sustainable practices and fair wages, Alaffia was born. Now came the difficult part. Labeling laws for selling cosmetics wasn’t something Olowo-n’djo had dealt with in the past. It was a challenge navigating through international laws.
He also found that Americans weren’t familiar with raw shea butter and its properties, which is the main ingredient in many of their products. If Americans knew about shea butter at all, they knew the refined, processed version sold in many Western stores.
Refined shea butter has been boiled and the butter is sometimes extracted through petrochemicals, eliminating most of the moisturizing properties that make shea such a valued commodity. Refined shea butter is white, while raw shea butter is a rich, buttery yellow. Americans had to be educated on these differences before Alaffia could secure sales.
The other ingredients in Afaffi’s products are simple and natural (like Baobab oil and Red Palm), sans the usual chemical cocktails found in much of mainstream products. Olowo-n’djo knows he could gain a larger profit by using cheaper synthetic ingredients, but he chooses not to.
“By doing the right thing by the women in West Africa, we have the responsibility to do right by the women in America,” says Olowo-n’djo. “It’s a moral thing for us. Not using those chemicals is the right thing to do. We know they are bad. Why would we put them in products and send them to families?”
Alaffia’s prices are far below that of many natural beauty brands found in the US, even though Alaffia is imported. Olowo-n’djo says their goal was never to get rich from their efforts, but to provide change for the women of Togo, and to make an excellent product that is accessible to those in the West who may not have a lot of money.
With 90% of the company’s profits going to operations, only 10% is available for long term community projects. But providing opportunity for women, and now young girls, is Alaffia’s mission. They find a way. Olowo-n’djo has seen his company provide 3,500 bicycles to girls in central Togo to ensure they get to school (sometimes ten miles or more from their homes). The dropout rate for young girls in this geographic location was 91% before Alaffia’s bicycle project. Now, the numbers are turned upside down – 90% of the girls stay in school.
In addition, more than 2,000 students have received much needed school supplies, and 740 women have received full pre-natal and delivery care (Pre-natal care is critical in Western Africa, as approximately 225 women and 1,200 newborns die each day from complications in childbirth).
Olowo-n’djo says Alaffia doesn’t have an advertising budget (they rely on word of mouth and bloggers). He doesn’t have a personal savings account. But Alaffia is debt-free (their initial business loans are all paid off) and he has seen his company accomplish it’s original goal: Helping his mom.
Want to help Alaffia in their mission? You can purchase their products online or at Whole Foods across the country. You can also donate here towards a bike for a child to get to school. Contact Alaffia for other opportunities to get involved.
And if you’d like to try Alaffia’s products, you can get a 20% discount by using the code HEALTHYBEAUTY at check out (good through August 22, 2011). It’s our way of saying, “Thanks” for reading our blog, and an encouragement for you to switch all of your products to healthier brands like Alaffia.
The discount code works at www.alaffia.com and www.beautifulcurls.com
No products or money were given for this article. It is strictly an editorial piece. We gave Alaffia a free ad space here on site because we believe in their mission.
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Post is filed under Beauty Space -This entry was posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2011 at 11:12 am and tagged with Alaffia, fair trade, shea butter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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