Three words: Shop with purpose. This is the primary mission statement of the artisan-run boutique AfroKouture.
AfroKouture is a new addition to the Bel Air Armory Marketplace located in Downtown Bel Air at 37 N Main Street, Suite 105, Bel Air, MD. The shop sells Kenyan tea alongside handmade fashion, jewelry and home décor created by artisans in Kenya and local makers here in Maryland, according to their website.
AfroKouture is not your average artisan-run boutique. A part of each sale that AfroKouture makes goes back into the Harford County community to support HopeWorks Global, a local nonprofit. This nonprofit is dedicated to two primary objectives. These objectives are preventing human trafficking through education, advocacy, and community empowerment and supporting survivors on their path to healing and independence, according to their website.
Both AfroKouture and HopeWorks Global are run by founder Linda Aluoch. Aluoch is a first-generation American who grew up in Kenya.
For Aluoch and her family this mission of human trafficking prevention is not far removed, it’s personal. Two years ago, Aluoch recognized that her sister, who had passed away years before in Kenya due to HIV complications, could have been the victim of human trafficking. “I was involved in what I did not realize was actually going to be a rescue of a mother of four who happened to be trafficked,” Aluoch said. “That’s when everything started making sense to me.”
Aluoch realized that the woman who she rescued had used similar language to that that her sister had used when she ran away from their house at sixteen-years old. “Every time we found her she would say ‘they will not be happy’ and we did not know who the ‘they’ were.” Aluoch recalled.
While dealing with this rescue Aluoch found that there was nowhere she felt comfortable turning to for help. “I realized there was a big gap with regards to education,” Aluoch said. “People don’t know how to recognize trafficking situations.” This is how HopeWorks Global was born.
HopeWorks Global sets up training and awareness seminars in Harford County and surrounding areas for people to learn more about how to prevent human trafficking. “We have normalized mental health, we have normalized addiction…it’s time for us to start looking at human trafficking as one of those issues,” Aluoch said.
In addition to AfroKouture’s sales supporting HopeWorks Global, its sales also support the Kenyan families that create the handmade artisanal products. AfroKouture provides these families with valuable and vital economic opportunities. AfroKouture is currently working with about 43 families to make and produce their catalog of items.
Aluoch views this factor of intervention in an impoverished community as a connection point between AfroKouture and HopeWorks Global as she attributes the highly volatile situation that her sister found herself in to her own family's poverty level. Aluoch’s family grew up struggling to make ends meet. She has scars on her hands from fighting over food and some on the bottom of her feet because she did not have shoes. “I carry scars,” Aluoch said. “I call them jewels now.”
It is through this combination of intervention in impoverished communities and prevention awareness of human trafficking that allows AfroKouture and HopeWorks Global to work together to make a tangible difference. “There are all these vulnerable populations and they are not out of the country, they are within our county.” Aluoch said. “Every dollar spent at our store is not just going to impact the people who are making the product, it’s also going to impact the people within our community right here in Harford County.”
AfroKouture
📍 37 N Main Street, Suite 105, Bel Air, MD 21014
💻 afrokouture.com
📧 [email protected]
📞 (443)267-7688
HopeWorks Global, Inc.
📍 669 Bel Air Rd, #1129, Bel Air, MD 21014
💻 hopeworksglobal.org
📧 [email protected]
