business backgrounder | industry
— studied English and earned a degree in organizational theory.
Then they borrowed $ 50,000 and went back to Togo where they started the company that has become Alaffia.
The business model is unique. Alaffia takes raw ingredients from Togo, including coconut oil and shea butter from shea nuts, ships them to the U. S. and uses them to make soaps, oils, lotions and shampoos.
Doing this allows them to employ about 750 people in Africa and another 11,000 contractors who supply shea nuts, grass and baskets. The U. S. operation employs another 120 people.
As a sign of its commitment to fair trade, Alaffia pays 15-25 percent above market prices for shea nuts and it pays members of its cooperative four times the average family income in Togo.
In addition to providing jobs, the company has numerous humanitarian and environmental projects, including:
• A maternal health project, which pays for full pre- and post-delivery care for women in rural Togo. Since it started in 2007, Alaffia product sales have paid for the birth of more than 4,000 babies. A second element of the maternal health project is aimed at eradicating female genital mutilation.
• Education projects, which provide bicycles from the U. S. to school children in Togo, primarily girls, who use them to get to school and back. The program has sent more than 7,100 bikes to Togo, where more than 90 percent of the students who received a bike stayed in school and graduated.
• A reforestation project, which funds the planting of trees by Togolese farmers to help mitigate soil erosion and improve food security.
• An eyeglass project, which takes donated glasses from the U. S. and gives them to people in Togo where they can cost as much as one month’ s wage.
grow here
For Alaffia, the whirlwind year started with filming commercial spots for AWB’ s Grow Here campaign. The company was one of three featured in the 2017 version of AWB’ s multi-year advertising campaign aimed at improving the image of employers by highlighting the positive ways employers are improving communities and building lives.
“ Private enterprise alleviates poverty,” Tchala said in the 30-second spot that aired in heavy rotation this spring on broadcast and cable television statewide.
A few months later, after the ambassador visit to Olympia and after the AGOA summit in August, Tchala and Hyde joined AWB members at the annual Policy Summit in September, bookending the year. Tchala was part of a panel that recounted the Grow Here effort, and both Tchala and Hyde gave a presentation about how and why businesses can invest in social responsibility.
Market research shows that 64 percent of American consumers made socially responsible purchase decisions in the last year and 26 percent chose not to purchase a product or service because a business was not socially responsible, said moderator Stephen Daniels-Brown.
“ It’ s not about taking your profit and giving it away,” Tchala said.“ It’ s not about that. It’ s about simply looking to your community and seeing what support you can provide.”
Tchala and Hyde have done that from the very beginning, when their“ community” was the village of Kaboli in Togo and the state of Washington.
Just like their business, their community has grown over the years to include the nation of Togo, the United States— and 25 women leaders from Washington employers.
44 association of washington business