This month’s blog guest is Monica Stephenson—a fellow gem and jewelry lover, whom I first met two decades ago when Monica was simply blogging about designers. Since then, she has pivoted to being a champion of mining communities and transparency in the jewelry industry, by starting Anza and Moyo gems. Read on for some gemstone behind-the-scenes.

What made you pivot from writing about the industry/jewelers to being “on the ground” and having a direct hand in supporting sustainable mining and bringing change to people in the gem trade?

I started the idazzle.com blog in 2008 after spending the previous decade-plus in the jewelry business in various capacities from retail to tech including helping Amazon launch their jewelry business in the early 2000s. Over the years with idazzle, I had the privilege of interviewing countless makers and designers such as you, and reported on trends and developments. I found myself really drawn to stories about people who were very deliberate about responsibility, whether that was in their studios or the type of materials that they sourced. In 2013 I saw a tweet about a documentary that was being filmed in East Africa, tracing the origin of a gemstone to a finished piece of designer jewelry. I was really, really intrigued, and that was the catalyst to working not just with the sparkly side of things (which I love), but also opened my eyes to the realities of where and WHO materials in our industry actually come from.

Tell me about your first trip to Tanzania and Kenya with the documentary film “Sharing the Rough” and how that changed your vision of your place in the industry?

Yeah, so it turned out that tweet had fairly monumental consequences in my life! I decided that I had to go on the film trip in 2014! So,I flew 9000 miles and joined a group of people I never met before, and found myself standing on the edge of a Kenyan tsavorite mine—which turned out to be pretty life-changing overall! The

gem mining there was being done by artisanal miners who are independent entrepreneurs, digging holes in the ground with essentially hand tools and finding gemstones. The miners are super passionate about what they are doing, and work unbelievably hard. It really gave me an appreciation for how much work it is to just get one gemstone out of the ground and to market, and there are so many barriers in between: lack of access to financing, lack of access to good tools, lack of access to education. I felt like that was something that we could solve. I thought that perhaps I could create a business model where we could buy the gems directly in East Africa from the miners and brokers, AND reinvest ten percent of sales back into these communities in the form of entrepreneurial initiatives, and vocational training such as faceting. So that’s how ANZA—which means “begin” in Kiswahili—came about. Over the past almost 10 years we’ve been continuing to develop and refine that mission, with a special focus on women in the supply chain and how we can support and empower them at every step along a gem’s journey.

Exploitation in the jewelry/mining industry is rampant – how do Anza Gems and Moyo Gems aim to change this and why do you feel traceability and responsibly-sourced gems are so important?

Yes, I think that the jewelry industry has really benefited from opacity in the supply chain. The system was never built for transparency. It has been beneficial to keep your gem sources very hidden because that could be your competitive advantage—finding amazing material from a particular region or area. This doesn’t necessarily mean that exploitation is actively happening everywhere across the globe, but there are reasons for not disclosing your sources and maybe perhaps the conditions that those source materials come from. We feel at ANZA, and especially with the Moyo gems project—which seeks to empower women miners through sustainable market access—that the entire market and ecosystem really benefits from transparency on both sides. The women artisanal miners (60 percent of the participating miners) that benefit from the Moyo markets have access to international suppliers who will pay them close to what those gems might sell for in an export office in a larger city in Tanzania and Kenya. With Moyo, the miner has direct feedback about their actual value in the international marketplace. So now the miner who worked so hard to bring that gem out of the ground and to the market gets 95% of the export price, her broker gets 5%. I’ve paid about the same price I would in an exporter’s office, but now we’ve given that lion’s share to the miner. It’s actually a redistribution of wealth that still supports the broker community as well as the miner so everyone wins. And it’s such a short supply chain (miner to me to cutter to designer) that we know the miner’s name!

Your stones are so colorful and full of character; each one seems to have its own story. Can you trace a particular stone back to a particular miner?

I’m so thrilled that you think our gems are so beautiful and vibrant—coming from you, that’s such a huge compliment! We feel like each of our gems is such an incredibly rare miracle! I think in some measure this is because we choose beautiful rough from the miners at the market days, and then we hand the rough—each piece with the original miners name and number on it— to women faceters in the US who are extremely talented at what they do, and let them create their vision of what that gem should be. I’m going to get a little woo-woo here, but there is such great karma by the end of each gem’s thoughtful journey that they can’t help but be captivating! 

I’m really excited to be using some Anza gems for the first time in my new Tandem Rings Collection, specifically because of your mission statement supporting women and communities that don’t have “western” resources. What is your favorite thing about meeting the people of the gem trade on their home turf?

Oh, there are so many things I love about being in Tanzania and Kenya when I’m there for Market Days! There is something so special about East Africa—I feel so at home as soon as I land (my travel companions actually laugh at how happy I am). I love the landscape—red dirt, acacia trees, and blue sky. Invariably we will see animals on our way to the mining sites—zebras, giraffes (my favorite!), sometimes even elephants! And there is nothing like the welcome we receive in the mining villages and at the Market Day—the miners are so happy to see that WE come to THEM. The relationships we have built there are unbelievably rewarding. 

Let’s talk about your own personal jewelry collection. What type of piece/s do you gravitate towards?

Colored gemstone designs, of course!! I love color, especially in unexpected combinations. I love to wear some pieces when I’m in East Africa so that the miners can see what becomes of the rough gems we buy—they are so excited about the transformation and that people in the US and Europe love and collect their gems!

We all dream about our ultimate piece of jewelry—tell me what yours is.

Well, this is a full circle moment for me. Many years after first visiting you in your studio and then following your artistic journey, I would love to have one of YOUR pieces with a gorgeous “scene” gemstone and an accompanying landscape painting—maybe with some accent of Moyo Gems? I might be obsessed 🤩.

ABOUT MONICA:

Monica Stephenson is the founder of ANZA Gems, which fuels development in East Africa through responsible gemstone purchasing with ten percent of sales supporting education and entrepreneurial initiatives in mining communities. She is a founding collaborator of Moyo Gems, which offers a traceable, supportive model to bring gems from women artisanal miners of Tanzania and Kenya to the international market. Monica is the past President of the Board of Ethical Metalsmiths, and is on the international Board of Directors of the Women’s Jewelry Association, the Board of Directors for Gem Legacy, and an Advisory Board member of Black in Jewelry Coalition.