The Perfect Stack

May 7th, 2012 • BY

East Africa Swahili Coast Arusha Tanzania Nairobi Kenya NGO

We can’t help but love these banana bark bangles crafted by ladies on East Africa’s Swahili Coast. Besides their downright bohemian good looks, Mikuti’s bracelets ($60 for the three-bangle Perfect Stack) also wrap up a feel-good, eco-conscious story of economic development.

What more could you ask of your accessories?

The Mikuti jewelry line was launched by NYU grad student Erika Freund after she spent the summer of 2009 volunteering with a small non-profit NGO in the Meru Dustrict of Tanzania. There she stumbled on the vast abundance of—and potential for—banana tree bark, a free, renewable resource that most people could scoop up in their own back yards. After receiving rave reviews of the East Africa-made bangles back in Manhattan, Freund launched Mikuti, which means “dried leaf” in Kiswahili.

“The product is handmade in Tanzania, by a small group of individuals I work with—it’s taken off into a full-on business for them and myself,” says Freund. “There’s minimum environmental impact, as the banana tree is one of the most widely used resources in East Africa. We also pay fair-trade wages for each piece and, as a result, there’s been an incredible local impact on their economy in the past two-and-a-half years.”

If you’re scrambling for a last-minute gift this week for your dear old mum, Mikuti’s goods just might be the perfect offering—and conscious conversation piece.

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Erinn Morgan

About

After a 10-year career as an award-winning New York City-based editor launching and redesigning urban, style-driven magazines, Erinn Morgan left her downtown Manhattan digs after September 11th, 2001, in search of a less encumbered, freelance lifestyle. A life-changing, two-year-long trek around the country in a motorhome eventually landed her in Durango, Colo., which she now calls home. Her writing has appeared in numerous— More about this author →