Sourcing

Q&A: Moyo Gems Celebrates 3 Years and Many Milestones

SourcingAug 15, 2022

Q&A: Moyo Gems Celebrates 3 Years and Many Milestones

In honor of the anniversary, Pact’s Mines to Markets Director Cristina Villegas discusses recent expansion and where it goes from here.

20220815_Moyo-header.jpg
Moyo Gems held its first market day in Kenya this May, connecting the vetted miners participating in the program to traders. (Photo credit: Cristina M. Villegas/Pact)
Moyo Gems launched in 2019 with the goal of providing the market with colored gemstones mined by women in East Africa and tracked all the way through the supply chain.

Moyo helps the women work safer and mine better while also giving them financial security and creating equitable markets for the gems they mine.

The program includes market days to connect the vetted miners with traders and a blockchain component to trace the stones start to finish.

The pilot launched with women miners in Tanga, Tanzania through a partnership with the Tanzania Women Miners Association (TAWOMA) and has expanded quickly since then, branching out into Kenya earlier this year in collaboration with another local association.

As Moyo celebrates three years and more than 8,000 stones purchased from its trading partners, National Jeweler caught up with Cristina Villegas, director of mines to markets at non-governmental organization Pact, to talk about recent milestones for the program and where it goes from here.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

National Jeweler: You were on an episode of our “My Next Question” webinar series in April 2021 to talk about the progress Moyo had made up to that point. Tell us a little bit about Moyo’s evolution since then.

Cristina Villegas: We’re nearly double where we were last year, in terms of miner numbers, through our Kenya expansion. So now we’re at 700 miners. And we’re going to be growing even more in Kenya because our partner there, AWEIK (the Association for Women in Energy and Extractives in Kenya), just attracted a major grant from Oxfam. It’s a four-year grant, and the idea is to grow Moyo across Kenya.

20220815_1-Moyo.jpg
This picture was taken in October 2021 when a delegation of Kenyan miners, government officials, and AWEIK leaders came to the Moyo Tanzania Market Day to see how it worked. Pictured from left to right are AWEIK CEO Hannah Wang'ombe, TAWOMA Chairwoman Salma Kundi Ernst, and Pact Kenya Director Jacquie Ndirangu. (Photo credit: Norbert Massay/Pact)

That’s exciting on a number of levels. First, AWEIK will be growing and stabilizing. And then to have Moyo funding for four years, that’s just amazing.

In [the non-governmental organization sphere], we’re talking more about localization of aid and decolonizing aid, and that’s what this is, and it’s so cool. When we first partnered for the World Bank project [for Moyo], they were saying their grant history kind of limited them on how much money they could qualify for in their own direct funding. They asked us to partner as much as possible, so we’ve been partnering for three different grants. And now they’ve grown enough to attract a four-year grant directly from Oxfam. It’s a side benefit of Moyo that we’re stabilizing these women’s mining associations and their incomes … in addition to them preparing the program for the future.

NJ: From the start, you’ve said you want to make this a scalable project that could work in many places. So now that you’ve taken it from Tanzania to Kenya, what have you learned?

CV: I think it’ll work where there is a strong national associations of miners, so they can really own it. And then they can also visit the original site [in Tanzania]. AWEIK went down to Tanzania to observe their market day. And we had government partners from Kenya come down—local county government and national government—to see how it was working.

We also had miners from Kenya come down to see the Tanzanian side. I told them, look, we can’t copy and paste. Kenya and Tanzania share a language and a border, but they’re very far apart in terms of how things operate. So when you visit these sites, just think about what would work in Kenya and how you would adjust it. 

We still have to have responsible mining be a core tenant of the project, so that can’t be negotiated. But what does that look like in Kenya? And how would you like things set up? The feedback was, you made it very simple for the miners to arrive and navigate market day.

Then [AWEIK and Pact Kenya] had their own workshop last December and they created their own rules for Moyo Kenya that we accepted. But the adjustments for the legal context were more difficult because Kenya has a moratorium on [mining] licenses. So we had to navigate that in a way that would honor and acknowledge that in this existing system, this moratorium exists. 

The next few months were spent registering miners and conducting the trainings. Then we held our first market day in May, ahead of the national election. The next market day will be based on the election results. If it’s contested, then we’ll have to push it back. If it’s not contested, then we can go ahead with the next. 

 “It’s a side benefit of Moyo that we’re stabilizing these women’s mining associations and their incomes in addition to them preparing the program for the future.” 

The cool thing was that we had AWEIK and Pact Kenya staff in the Customer Service room. And over those three days they kept telling me that the feedback [from the miners] was universally, we didn’t know what we had.

One woman was like, ‘I was about to give up on mining because I didn’t think this could be enough money for me. But today I am shocked at what I got. [The traders] told me what exactly what they want. Nobody’s told us this before; we were kind of mining blind. And now I know exactly what to bring, and I’m so excited.’ She realized that she could make this a livelihood for herself.

The AWEIK staff was just so thrilled that there’s a real breakthrough. It’s because the market is the core of it and people are motivated to go through all these steps [to be a part of Moyo] because of the market.

NJ: Outside of Moyo’s expansion, there have been some other notable developments in the past year. Tell me about those.

CV: We were in the Financial Times, in a story from Vivienne Becker. We were also in the Robb Report. It was a story about top stones in Tucson, and we’re honorable mention. But they say something like, this doesn’t compare in value to a quarter-million-dollar stone but it’s just as special. That was really heartwarming.

We were also at Paris Fashion Week. Repossi [an Italian jewelry brand owned by LVMH] got in touch with me in early January and said we would love to have a collection around Moyo, and we want to do it by Paris Fashion Week, which is in March.

I never thought that was going to happen in my life that we made Paris Fashion Week. And then Repossi messaged me like a month later and said, hey, we want to have this event at Selfridges in London. Will you come? We have Rachel Garrahan from British Vogue interviewing you and Gaia Repossi in conversation with like 20 journalists.

And then overall, the demand signal for [our traders], Monica (Stephenson of Anza Gems), Stuart (Pool of Nineteen48), and Emmanuel (Piat of Maison Piat) is still strong among smaller jewelers and smaller makers, and it’s going really well. I really couldn’t be more excited about what the future will bring.

NJ: What have you learned along the way in terms of unexpected unforeseen benefits or challenges?

CV: Moyo is scalable, but we do better with either custom pieces or collections.

When we first launched Moyo, I had dreams of being in major jewelers, but one thing I’ve realized is that in the world of colored gems, it’s impossible to have 1,000 gems the exact same hue or exact same species come from artisanal mines, or even like, several hundred of them. So it’s been humbling that we can’t be the full supplier for Signet, for example.

20220815_2-Moyo.jpg
Moyo now has more than 700 miners participating across Tanzania and Kenya to bring their colored gemstones to market. (Photo credit: Cristina M. Villegas/Pact)

But we’re perfectly made for collections. And if companies want to go through our sapphires and garnets, we have plenty of them. That’s what Gaia did with Repossi—she went to Piat and saw the gems and then handpicked the ones [she wanted] and made a beautiful collection. So that’s been a big learning on my side. But I think also it means that we can service as a lot of different groups.

NJ: Is that how Brilliant Earth chose what to use for its Moyo Gems collection?

CV: Their model is highly custom. Consumers go to the website and choose the stone they want and the style they want. It’s perfect for us because it is so individual so if we have 10 stones, about the same color and same shape, they can provide that. And they have been increasing their Moyo buying as well, which is exciting.

That’s a good reminder that another part of the story is that about a year ago, we attracted a grant from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation supporting our economic empowerment program called WORTH (Women Organizing Resources Together).

Tiffany was supporting the WORTH rollout on the TAWOMA footprint, which happened to then include (Tiffany) wherever we expanded Moyo.

On the Kenya side, we just got a grant this year from Brilliant Earth, and they’re not only doing WORTH on the Kenya side but they’re also paying for a program manager for Moyo.

We’re really getting the infrastructure. It’s thanks to people who are buying the stuff but then also these companies that have stepped in with their foundations.

NJ: Are you thinking about expanding beyond Tanzania and Kenya?

CV: Yes. It has to be where women miners are active and in kind of critical numbers, so most likely Southern Africa or possibly Latin America. But it has to be where people ask us and then where the conditions are right and the stones are beautiful. 

 Related stories will be right here … 

Watch the space because I think we’re going to grow to a new country in a couple of years. We haven’t had serious discussions so far because all those things haven’t come together. But I’m open to an opportunity to find new countries.

NJ: Obviously right now there’s a lot of conversation about responsible souring. It seems like it can be easy for people to get lost in the weeds, and they like might look at something like Moyo and think, oh, it’s beautiful, but we can’t always replicate it that way. Why do you think that a project like Moyo is so important right now, especially with all these conversations?

CV: Moyo Gems has shown that traceability is indeed possible in colored gemstone supply chains. I used to get so frustrated when people would say it was impossible. Moyo shows that it is possible to know your miner, to know the community. 

We do blockchain there in rural Tanzania, and we’ve done it now in Kenya too. It’s being done directly by the women mining associations. TAWOMA learned blockchain and now they’re the ones who do it on market days. We just taught the Kenyan partner blockchain and they’re running it now too. We’re kind of closing the technology gap on that front.

By proving traceability is possible, it’s really taken the excuse away not to act. We’re starting … to get different, larger companies coming and asking, can we do a colored gem sourcing program based on our supply chains? And I’m like, well first we have to figure out where your stuff comes from. And then we could talk.

It’s really shifted from the industry saying how we cannot do something to shifting toward what are the various ways we can act, which is cool.

The Latest

Cashier handing Rocksbox bag to customer
MajorsJun 26, 2025
Why Rocksbox Is Opening Stores As Signet Jewelers Downsizes

Rocksbox President Allison Vigil shared the retailer’s expansion plans, and her thoughts on opening stores in malls.

Penny Ruston
IndependentsJun 26, 2025
Penny Ruston Dies at 80

The creator of the WJA Chicago chapter is remembered as a champion for women in the jewelry industry and a loving grandmother.

Stock image of woman shopping
SurveysJun 26, 2025
After Recovering in May, Consumer Confidence Dips in June

The decline was consistent across age groups and almost all income groups, with tariffs and inflation still top of mind.

an instructor and a student in a bench jewelry classroom
Brought to you by
Investing in the Next Generation of Bench Jewelers

The Seymour & Evelyn Holtzman Bench Scholarship from Jewelers of America returns for a second year.

Sorellina Playlist: Electric Dreams Campaign
CollectionsJun 26, 2025
Jam Out With Sorellina’s Jimi Hendrix-Inspired Jewels

The “Playlist: Electric Dreams” collection brings lyrics from the musician’s song, “Little Wing,” to life through fine jewelry.

Weekly QuizJun 26, 2025
This Week’s Quiz
Test your jewelry news knowledge by answering these questions.
Take the Quiz
The Jewelry Symposium event
Events & AwardsJun 26, 2025
The Jewelry Symposium Is Looking for Speakers for 2026 Event

The event is set for May 16-19 in Detroit, Michigan.

Exterior of Marissa Collections’ new store in Nantucket, Massachusetts
IndependentsJun 25, 2025
Marissa Collections Opens in Nantucket as Legal Fight Continues

The Vault’s Katherine Jetter is accusing the retailer of using info she shared for a potential partnership to move into Nantucket.

Jewelers of America logo with meetup, State of the Majors, giveaway and massages
Brought to you by
Jewelers of America is Headed to Las Vegas for JCK 2025

The countdown is on for the JCK Las Vegas Show and JA is pulling out all the stops.

Counterfeit Cartier “Juste Un Clou” bracelet
CrimeJun 25, 2025
Customs Nabs Another Big Shipment of Fake Cartier, Van Cleef Jewelry

Agents seized 2,193 pieces, a mix of counterfeit Cartier “Love” and “Juste Un Clou” bracelets, and Van Cleef & Arpels’ “Alhambra” design.

Karine Choudhrie Big Splash Circus Starfish and Lantern Fish
CollectionsJun 25, 2025
Splash into Karina Choudhrie’s Collection of Underwater Circus Performers

The designer brought her children’s book, “The Big Splash Circus,” to life through a collection of playful fine jewelry characters.

Jewelers of America
Events & AwardsJun 25, 2025
JA Announces Impact Initiative Fund Recipients

The trade association has chosen the recipients of the funding initiative it formed to foster the growth and sustainability of the industry.

Khepri Jewels Luna collection fancy color fringe multi-shape drop diamond earrings
EditorsJun 24, 2025
The Best New Jewelry from Couture 2025, Part 2

Associate Editor Natalie Francisco shares 20 additional pieces that stood out to her at the Couture show.

Lori Tucker
IndependentsJun 24, 2025
Colorado Bench Jeweler Celebrates 50 Years With Local Retailer

Lori Tucker started at Williams Jewelers when she was 18 years old.

“Marvel | Citizen Zenshin” watch for the new The Fantastic Four movie
WatchesJun 24, 2025
Citizen’s New ‘Fantastic Four’ Watch Is Literally Super

The “Marvel | Citizen Zenshin” watch is crafted in Super Titanium and has subtle nods to all four “Fantastic Four” superheroes on the dial.

XO Tacori diamond ring
MajorsJun 24, 2025
Tacori, QVC to Launch Exclusive Lab-Grown Diamond Jewelry Collection

The “XO Tacori” collection was designed to blend luxury and accessible pricing.

Pritesh Patel
GradingJun 23, 2025
GIA Names New President and CEO

Pritesh Patel, the lab’s chief operating officer, will take over as president and CEO of GIA.

Graphic for Las Vegas recap episode of “My Next Question”
Recorded WebinarsJun 23, 2025
Watch: Top Trends at Couture, JCK Las Vegas 2025

National Jeweler and Jewelers of America discuss the standout jewelry trends and biggest news to emerge from the shows this year.

Penny Preville, Maggie Hess, Stella Song, and Benjamin King
Events & AwardsJun 23, 2025
Jose Hess Design Awards Celebrate 6 Jewelry Designers

The winning designs captured the “Radiance” theme.

24th Gem Awards Show Logo
Events & AwardsJun 23, 2025
Gem Awards Now Accepting Nominations for 2026

Nominations in the categories of Jewelry Design, Media Excellence, and Retail Innovation will be accepted through July 30.

Single Stone Bryn Ring and Grace Lee Marquise Demi Demi Ring
TrendsJun 20, 2025
Dua Lipa Stays On-Trend With Chunky Engagement Ring

The singer’s ring ticks off many bridal trends, with a thick band, half-bezel setting, and solitaire diamond.

Yvonne Léon Python Gold Bracelet
TrendsJun 20, 2025
Piece of the Week: Yvonne Léon’s ‘Python Gold’ Bracelet

The bracelet references vintage high jewelry and snake symbolism as a playful piece where a python’s head becomes a working belt buckle.

Stock image of handcuffs
CrimeJun 18, 2025
7 Men Indicted in $100M Brinks Jewelry Heist

The heist happened in Lebec, California, in 2022 when a Brinks truck was transporting goods from one show in California to another.

Marie-Thérèse Pink diamond and Blue Belle sapphire necklace
AuctionsJun 18, 2025
Historic ‘Marie-Thérèse Pink’ Diamond Fetches $14M at Christie’s

The 10-carat fancy purple-pink diamond with potential links to Marie Antoinette headlined the white-glove jewelry auction this week. 

Caryl Capeci Starboard Cruises
EditorsJun 18, 2025
Q&A: Caryl Capeci Dives Into Cruise Jewelry Shopping

The Starboard Cruises SVP discusses who is shopping for jewelry on ships, how much they’re spending, and why brands should get on board.

Gresham grasshopper ring
AuctionsJun 18, 2025
16th-Century ‘Gresham Grasshopper’ Ring Sells for $56K

The historic signet ring exceeded its estimate at Noonans Mayfair’s jewelry auction this week.

Kirk Kara fine jewelry
CollectionsJun 18, 2025
Kirk Kara Celebrates 135 Years With New Jewels

To mark the milestone, the brand is introducing new non-bridal fine jewelry designs for the first time in two decades.

Gemfields 36 Carat Ruby
SourcingJun 18, 2025
Gemfields Sells 36-Carat Rough Ruby

The gemstone is the third most valuable ruby to come out of the Montepuez mine, Gemfields said.

×

This site uses cookies to give you the best online experience. By continuing to use & browse this site, we assume you agree to our Privacy Policy