Our mission is based on a very simple idea - yet one that takes time energy and commitment to accomplish. It is to convert our passion for exotic stones into helping the local artisan miners remain in business and continue to provide for their families. Due to geo-location of the mines, there aren’t many other jobs in the area to support local residents other than this labor-intense work of finding gems. The insurgencies of mechanized and streamlined mining companies are fast becoming existential threat to the lowly miners and their ways of life. As a result, we have made it our mission to only buy from regular folks by physically going to a local market and by also encouraging other buyers to do the same. Additionally, we have committed a portion of our sales along with donations and grants from various sources, to establishing vocational workshops, free of charge, to teach miners more skills so they can earn more for their work.
To help us reach our ambition, we have devised the following plans:
Open strategically placed workshops in areas to:
- Teach people how to identify and classify their gemstones
- How to cut and polish various stones
- How to work efficiently and without jeopardizing safety
- Produce students who, in turn, become teachers themselves
Furthermore, as is the case in most parts of the undeveloped world, women often take up the role of a homemaker or a non-bread winner member of a family. Ethiopia is no different; and with 80% of her over 100 million population under the age of thirty and more than half that number being female, we try to motivate and encourage women to get involved in the, otherwise male dominated, business of gemstones and jewelry making.
It is my sincere hope that our continuous work, however insignificant, will have contributed to the congregated mission of reaching United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) of 2030