Empowering Women & Communities
Moyo Gems is on the move.
Launched in 2019, Moyo Gems seeks to empower women gemstone miners in Eastern Africa by providing new training opportunities, financial security, and access to fair trade markets. A collaboration of several businesses and organizations—the ethical gem suppliers ANZA Gems, Nineteen48, and Maison Piat; traceability company Everledger; Pact, an international nonprofit dedicated to helping communities develop; and the Tanzanian Women Miners’ Association (TAWOMA)—the initiative began with a pilot program in Tanzania. Pact representatives met and worked with local women miners in the Tanga province, who helped design the program and how it would operate. The miners would receive free gemology, health and safety, and negotiation training; help with securing mining rights to where they were working (making them legal in the eyes of the government); and direct access to the international market through the Moyo Gems brand and its trading partners.