It has been a while I interviewed someone on my blog. My intention is to do regular interviews with different women. Today I have an interview with Julie from Gogo Olive, a non-profit that provides women in Zimbabwe an income through knitting. This is something that is right up my alley. I knit partly as a hobby but for these women it makes all the difference. I love their work and hope you will fall in love with it too.
1. Tell us about Gogo Olive. How would you describe it?
The aim of Gogo Olive is to provide employment for women in Zimbabwe who really need it. We want to offer them the hope and purpose that having employment brings and enable them to provide for themselves and their families.
2. Why and how did you start Gogo Olive?
I started Gogo Olive as I kept coming into contact with women who were making beautiful products but they didn’t have any way of marketing them out of the country, or experience to know what would sell well. I had a small amount of experience in this area so thought it was worth giving it a go. I did some market research and tried to come up with designs for products that weren’t already being manufactured, so we wouldn’t face lots of competition. Once I had completed the designs I approached a small group of women about making the products and we have just slowly grown from there.
3. Why did you choose knitting as an avenue to help these women? Are there other projects you would like to do in the future?
I chose knitting as it requires only basic materials – you only need needles and yarn, and it can be done anywhere and at any time – this suits the lifestyle of Zimbabwean women as they often have many other responsibilities, so they can fit knitting into any spare time they might have. Hand knitting also doesn’t require electricity and as we often have electricity cuts this is also beneficial.At the moment we are happy sticking with knitting, there are still lots of new product lines that we can explore so hopefully over time our range will grow. I am also planning to do a bit more merchandising to make use of some of the beautiful photos we have of the Gogo Olive ladies and their families.
4. What do you enjoy the most about what you do?
I love being a part of something where I can see the positive impact it has in the lives of the women and their families. It is a privilege to see them make the most of the opportunity they have been given and their sense of value increase, I also love knowing that the money the women are paid allows them to educate their children, as well as meet their daily needs. I really enjoy being creative so coming up with new designs is another area of my job that I love, and Zimbabwe is such an inspiring country!
5. Where can people find your work?
We now sell to many countries around the world – America, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, The Netherlands, Uganda as well as in Zimbabwe. We also have an online shop on our website – www.gogo-olive.com – where all our products can also be purchased.
6. What’s next on the horizon for you Gogo Olive?
At the moment I feel we are at a stage where we have to keep doing what we are doing and really make sure that we are doing it to a standard of excellence. Eventually, we would like to expand the project so we can support more women and their families, but for now we need to focus on being the best that we can be and really trying to promote Zimbabwe and it’s people in a positive light.
