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

Alright, Zellipah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

Gitzell Fairtrade works with Artisans in Africa. We carry a selection of home goods but mainly focusing on baskets. Weaving is a craft passed down to generations. The weavers are mainly from rural remote areas. They do not have ready access to markets for their baskets. When they get the baskets to the market, they face the challenges of transportation and price fluctuations. Once in the market the weaver may end up selling at a loss so that they do not return with the basket as they’d wish to buy something else with the money. Other weavers are not able to weave due to lack of raw material. Gitzell Fairtrade partners with these weavers and ensures that they have the supplies needed to weave. The price is agreed upon and is equal to or better than the market price. The hustle of transportation is removed as we pick the baskets from the weavers’ homes or agreed upon meeting point. Price fluctuations are removed. All the weavers are supplied with a deposit to purchase the supplies needed and price paid in full at time of pick up. The profits are kept by the families.
Going beyond weaving, all our weavers are farmers. Due to poor farming practices and climate change, most times they do not have seed and supplies needed during the planting season. Gitzell Fairtrade supports these weavers with farming supplies so that they get a good crop. This wholistic approach strengthens our mission of improving livelihood of families in Africa

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My mother was a smallholder farmer in rural Kenya. All of us nine children helped with the farming as it was the main source of our livelihood. In addition, my mother was a master weaver. I learned weaving from her as a chore, after school and weekends. My father instilled the discipline of education in our lives. In 1998 when I moved to the United States to further my education, I had a suitcase of hand-crafted souvenirs gifted to me by my nieces. In rural Kansas, this rural girl had a hard time finding herself. My strong British English accent was not understood by many. As an immigrant and black in Midwest, I faced many challenges of settling in. I needed to find myself. I started selling the souvenirs and all of a sudden, I started finding myself and started communicating easily about the crafts. The customers were very receptive, and I saw an opportunity to support my home artisans by promoting their craftsmanship to the American market. This continued from the school cafeteria to craft fairs, to festivals and eventually to wholesale. This growth has also resulted in more and more artisans and their families being supported.
I thrive at the intersection of smallholder farmers and Fair-trade goods.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I became a single mother while the business required a lot of travel to craft fairs. I needed to slow down so I sought employment. With this decision to seek employment, it was not easy. After going to several interviews without success, I decided to volunteer in the local community colleges in the science department. This helped freshen my resume and then got a job in Ag Research.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

This is when I chose to become vulnerable and reflected on my journey as an immigrant. I looked at the struggles I have had to overcome. The many boxes that I needed to check as a black, woman, immigrant, single mother(then), entrepreneur, career in science, in addition to being a immigrant black woman in fair trade industry hang overed with white saviorism mentality. With the support from my husband, I started sharing my immigration journey in simple so called –zellitalks–.within the immigrant community in St Louis particularly to educate and encourage people during the pandemic. I shared it with my then employer as part of a get to know me series as part of inclusion and diversity. This was followed by invitations to speak at the community colleges, local university, women groups etc . Recently I was keynote speaker at the Fair Trade Federation Conference. While sharing my story, I have seen my sales and customer base growing in very positive and unusual ways. Eg. Recently a large financial corporation gifted their employees our baskets for Juneteenth. Sharing my journey with retail outlets as part of training the staff has helped improve sales of our baskets and has generated more reorders.         

Contact Info:

• Website: www.gitzellfairtrade.com
• Instagram: gitzellfairtradeinternational
• Facebook: gitzellfairtradeinternational