Purpose

Hupjefi tailoring trainees	Former Hupjefi trainee who started own tailoring business with a manual sewing machine	Hupjefi kitchen/cookery trainees	Hupjefi founders Patience Mollè and Dr. Regina Eder

As a purpose-driven enterprise, we support communities where our inspiration comes from. For our Kirdi collection, we are working with Hupjefi, a Douala, Cameroon based social enterprise who support young women from struggling backgrounds escape the inevitable, like prostitution or from being easy targets to violence. These young women receive a vocational education after which they are helped with either finding work or setting up a business. Hupjefi was founded by German Dr. Regina Maria Eder and Cameroonian engineer Patience Mollè and has been in operation since 1998 with an excellent track record of helping those who go through their support system find self-esteem and gain financial independence.

To encourage Hupjefi with this great work, we are offering 10% of every order placed through our website. This will be donated to Hupjefi quarterly and will go to support final year students who want to set up their own businesses – with adequate materials and mentorship for their first years in business. Ensuring their sustainability and quality of life.

Hupjefi also supports young girls from the far north (incidentally including those from the Kirdi community) who have migrated to Douala for economic and/or displacement reasons, such as fleeing from the insurgency of Islamic jihadist group Boko Haram.

Originally, we wanted to work directly with a social enterprise in the far north of the country but with Cameroon at the top of Africa’s displacement crisis – arising from the Boko Haram problem which has created over 400k refugees in the region from, Nigeria, Chad, and the Central African Republic – we figured it would be better to work with an established organization already on the ground with experience in supporting people from these displaced communities find their feet again.

You can find out more about Hupjefi and the great support they are bringing to young underprivileged women in Cameroon here. (Please be aware the website is in German).