05: Joanna Maiden: Cutting A New Pattern For The Fashion Industry
Description
Episode Summary:
Joanna shares her fruitful journey in building Soko Kenya, diving into the world of fashion as a vehicle for poverty reduction, positive change, and positive impact. Her idea to build a clothing factory in Kenya started off with 4 employees and has now grown to 150 employees with a sewing training program for employment, a charity, and period poverty school program. Joanna truly embodies success in the sense of doing what she always wanted to do with more great things to come!
Show Notes:
In this conversation Joanna shares how she dived into the world of fashion as a vehicle for poverty reduction, positive change, and positive impact. With the mindset to just give it a try, Joanna muscled enough courage to uproot herself to Kenya at age 24, which has now become 14 years in Kenya.
With a little knowledge on fashion and clothing manufacturing, Joanna's eagerness to learn and adapt allowed her to hit the ground running building Soko Kenya with 4 employees, which has now grown to employ 150 people.
In this conversation, Joanna shares her take on success as continuously learning, improving, and addressing the challenges of her employees and the community, which has allowed her to further push the envelope and branch out into new initiatives and partnerships, while doing what she loves.
Topics Covered:
- The trip to Kenya that sparked the idea for Soko Kenya
- Defining success as doing what you always wanted to do
- Sustainability put into practice, not just ticking off a checkbox
- The Kujuwa Initiative and addressing period poverty
- The power of the unconscious mind
- Disconnecting career from self worth
Guest Info:
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- Thanks to Pamoja for supporting Diaries of a Modern Trailblazer