Tim Straight founded the Homeland Development Initiative Foundation – HDIF with a mission to empower women across Armenia while using traditional methods like crochet and felt to create products for buyers in Germany, Italy, the US and other countries. Currently they work with 235 producers and their goal is to employ a thousand producers by the year 2024 in order to have an impact on many more lives.
HDIF impact
Over 230 producers
54% of revenue in 2021 comes from refugees groups
Plans for the future: employ 1000 producers by 2024
Up to 5 employees
Fair Trade Certificate
‘To me, success is not about how many products we have sold but the number of lives we have touched.’ said Tim.
In 2021, 54% of the HDIF’s revenue came from refugees groups like the one that Maral, one of the producers, is leading.
Find out more about the work of HDIF in the video where, together with Tim and Maral, we also meet Lena, who started a small company with the help of HDIF which produces pillow-cases and oven gloves that are very popular in the US. We also meet Genya who makes beautiful candles from natural beeswax together with her family.
