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DEF launches consumer-facing website
The Diamond Empowerment Fund now is telling the story of the good that diamonds do around the world directly to consumers.
The New York-based nonprofit just launched DiamondsDoGood.com, a website built in partnership with The Condé Nast Media Group. The site gives a history of the stones and shares stories of the good diamond and jewelry companies are doing today.
Stories shared on the site include Rio Tinto’s program that brings water to villages in rural India, the successes of three DEF student scholars, De Beers’ enterprise-building programs in South Africa, the education of women on maternal and children’s health in rural China by retailer Chow Tai Fook, and the giving back the industry does in the United States through Jewelers for Children.
Additional programs from the industry will be featured on the site throughout 2015.
“There has been a void in communication of the vast amount of good the industry does,” DEF co-founder Benjamin Chavis said. “This website will help fill that void.”
Supporting the website are accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
A grant from the JCK Industry Fund made development and the first phase of the website possible.
Founded by Chavis, business mogul Russell Simmons and diamond industry leaders in 2007, DEF works to empower diamond-producing communities worldwide. Its beneficiaries include CIDA City Campus in South Africa; the African Leadership Academy, a university preparatory school in Johannesburg; and the Botswana Top Achievers program, which gives that country’s top high school students the chance to study at the college of their choice anywhere in the world.
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