Kat Luckock - The Social Entrepreneur Coach

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Fighting poverty through sustainable employment & fairtrade in East Africa, with Megan Kitt

Kat Luckock
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In this weeks episode I speak to Megan Kitt, Founder of Tuli a Fairtrade jewellery business that creates employment in East Africa. We talk about the power of sustainable employment and economic independence in tackling poverty.

Megan has a really interesting back-story of how she came to become a social entrepreneur, starting out as a journalist and part-time model which both ultimately helped inspire and create the opportunity for her to create a jewellery business.

What I found really powerful talking to Megan was the fact that scaling impact isn’t always about the number of people you’re working with, supporting or employing – and that providing sustainable employment opportunities to individuals is key to tackling poverty long-term.

In this episode we discuss:

  • How Megan discovered she could use her experience to provide a market for the women making jewellery in Uganda and how she started her social enterprise [2:08]

  • 6 years in, Megan shares how many men and women she’s supporting in Uganda and Kenya [6.02]

  • The challenge of making a business from East Africa and the issues Megan has faced with scalability [6:51]

  • Megan’s “big vision” to fight poverty in a sustainable way through fairtrade and employment [7:55]

  • How Megan is measuring how she’s tackling poverty and creating social impact [13:12]

  • The motivating factor of having your social impact data and stories [17:10]

  • The power storytelling has in helping your brand grow and the ethics to consider when sharing other people’s stories (as beneficiaries) [18:57]

  • Megan’s business model and why she employs local managers in country in East Africa [29:20]

  • What Tuli is now doing with it’s profit to help the communities it works in grow in a sustainable way [34:00]

Listen to episode three with Megan Kitt here.

Tuli’s Links:

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