The three names on this tag are real people who made a clutch bag that traveled from the Himalayas to our little shop on 11th Street. If you purchase a JOYN product, a basket, or any stitched item made by a seamstress apprentice in Ghana, it will include a tag with at least one handwritten name on it. These are the names of women who handmade made your product. This small detail is one of the reasons we opened our brick and mortar in Tulsa.
For four years, we traveled locally to different pop-up shops and craft fairs so we could sell the items of our seamstress apprentices and our recycled glass bead jewelry. These were always great experiences, but after we packed up our temporary "shop" and left the location where we were selling, we usually didn't reconnect with those shoppers again. Our products were stored in a closet until the next pop up shop. We believe that one of the most important things that we do is build relationships with people and tell the stories of the artisans, apprentices, and crafters whose livelihood depends on other people purchasing their creations. We also want to invite people like you to learn what it means to "shop for good." We include this hashtag on many of our social media posts because it describes perfectly the kind of consumerism we believe in: thoughtful purchases that satisfy our shopping needs while helping to build a better life for someone else. Our friends in Ghana - both the students in our Education program and the women in our Income Generation program, directly benefit when you purchase a product. And if you purchase a product from JOYN, Global Mamas, Ajiri Tea, Sustainable Threads, Schwari, and the the other non-profits we partner with, the impact of "shop for good" expands even further.
If you are interested in what it means to shop for good, we would love to introduce you to ways you can do this, both here in our shop and beyond. We're located at 1404 E. 11th Street on Route 66 in Tulsa. Come shop our products and look for the names on the tags!