We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eldonna Fernandez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eldonna below.

Hi Eldonna, thanks for joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

I am a retired Air Force Veteran. I spent 23 years in the US Air Force. One of the core values is Service Before Self and I still live that to this day through my service to the women in Kenya. The Air Force also taught me about how to be a leader and strategies to operate under. I’m able to handle easily going into Kenya based on my experience with deployments and serving in various countries during my career. I’m also able to evaluate successes and failures based on the after action review concept I learned in the military.

Eldonna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

At Baskets and Beads Kenya, we empower women who buy our products to feel powerful and beautiful by adding a pop of color to their lives. We help women in extreme poverty in Kenya to build community and create microenterprises so they can sell their products with dignity. We do this by providing a unique hand-crafted fair trade product within a mass produced world.

From Mud Huts to Stories of Hope

Our story started very unexpectedly. Eldonna went to Kenya on a mission trip in February of 2018 with an organization called Reaching Beyond Ourselves, to be of service to the suffering and displaced people in Kitale, Kenya. She raised funds to go and do whatever she could to be of service. They took supplies including food, blankets and clothing to schools, churches and clinics and prisons, slums and kids on the streets. One of the last places visited was the Kipsongo slum. The homes are mud huts with a tin roof and dirt or rough concrete floor. There is no running water, no kitchen, and no bathrooms. They shared supplies and stories of hope.

As they were preparing to leave Eldonna noticed some of the women had hand-made items for sale. They didn’t have any money so they couldn’t buy anything.

One Gift that Ignited an Idea

One of the women gifted Eldonna with a beaded necklace… made of magazines. The mother was hoping for someone to sponsor her son for school. Eldonna discovered someone on a previous mission had provided a micro loan for the women to get materials to make the beads and sell them in the local market. Eldonna woke up in the middle of the night with a God-inspired idea to buy some beads and sell them with her Think Like A Negotiator book when she would speak. People could get a book and a bead instead of only a book. Baskets and Beads was born that night in the middle of the night.

Suitcases of Success

They started with five women and half a suitcase full of beads made of magazines. Slowly Eldonna doubled her order… and then it was an entire suitcase… then 7 suitcases, 11 suitcases… and now is receiving regular shipments from Kenya. Today, over 30 Kenyan women entrepreneurs are making the hand crafted products which are sold in a retail space in a Southern California location, in the online store and wholesale to several stores and boutique shops. Recently Baskets and Beads expanded to engage another 30-40 men and women making products of Kisii soapstone, from Kisii county in Kenya. Soapstone is one of the softest known minerals, making it easy to carve for bowls, decorative small dishes, ornaments and various animals.

Self-Esteem, Status and Success

This program is teaching entrepreneurial skills to the ladies in Kenya. They are revered as “businesswomen” and looked up to in their community as leaders. This has provided an opportunity to earn regular income, learn sound work ethics and setting and achieving goals toward their success. The ladies work together as a team and are overjoyed to be part of the Baskets and Beads family.

Fair Trade

Fair trade is an approach to business and to development based on dialogue, transparency, and respect that seeks to create greater equity in the international trading system. Baskets and Beads is a verified member of the Fair Trade Federation which means our practices have been scrutinized to ensure we are socially and environmentally responsible in everything we do.

From Poverty to Prosperity

Baskets and Beads is committed to supporting the women in Kenya. Our mission is to help them get out of poverty and create a better life for themselves and their families, sending their children to school and ensuring a brighter future.

Baskets and Beads provides a hand up not a hand out by marketing their handcrafted items.

MISSION

Create sustainable social enterprises/employment mentorship to build self sustaining families through entrepreneurship or employment one woman at a time.

VISION/PURPOSE STATEMENT

Until every Kenyan woman in poverty is fully supporting by their own contributions through sustainable businesses or employment.

Eradicating poverty – we bring innovation, safety and service to those suffering from extreme poverty and hopelessness.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I didn’t know anything about Fair Trade or operating in the non profit or social enterprise world. THe most impactful book I read was Toxic Charity and the most impactful video was Poverty Inc. It helped me understand how to operate a social enterprise business and how not to operate it and that things that most of us in the US think about doing give back work with those in poverty is completely different than reality. This knowledge enabled our organization to operate and approach the mission in the best way to work with the artisans in Kenya to take into consideration what they want to achieve vs what we think is best. We have a partnership and work together.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

We have retail and wholesale. We have space in a Fair Trade store and have an online store.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://basketsandbeadskenya.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/basketsandbeadskenya
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThinkLikeANegotiator
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eldonna/
• Twitter: twitter.com/eldonnaF
• Youtube: youtube.com/basketsandbeadskenya
• Other: Tik Tok Baskets and Beads Kenya

Image Credits
Personal Photo _ Val Westover Bottom 4 photos – Dennis Keyombe