A Brief Course Description**

Everything you need to know about sourcing in Ghana:

• An Overview of Ghanian Textiles
• Identifying Potential Suppliers
• Visiting Suppliers On Site
• Expect Complications
• After You're Gone
• Waxed Cotton Prints

The sourcing portion of this class will focus on efficiently and effectively sourcing fabric in a region of West Africa.  We’ll discuss the dos and dont’s of working with suppliers in Ghana, including helpful tools on identifying potential suppliers, using trade organizations to your advantage, and maintaining relationships once you have left Ghana.

On the production front, we’ll discuss how to navigate legal environment, form strong partnerships abroad, and produce fluidly.  The goal is to operate as a social business; thus, being altruistic in social impact and strategic with your business goals. 

**Part 2 of this 2-class series will focus on production in Ghana. More information HERE.

Meet our Teachers

Elizabeth Cloyd

Elizabeth is a member of the Source4Style team, the first online sustainable textile sourcing platform.  She has been with Source4Style from the very beginning – helping design and build the website and facilitating the arrival of the first textiles samples from India, Peru and Uganda. Since then she has sourced fabric and developed relationships with textile suppliers around the world. A recent trip to Ghana to source textiles and clothing has given her an even greater understanding of the global linkages in sustainable fashion. In addition to her work at Sourc4Style, she is the Partnership Director for the socially conscience fashion line Afia. 

Elizabeth graduated with a business degree from the University of Colorado - Boulder and has worked with such major brands as Oscar de la Renta and RODO.

Meghan Sebold

Meghan is the president and designer of Afia, a women's sustainable fashion line sourced and sewn in Ghana, West Africa. She was drawn to study abroad in Ghana in 2006 because of the vibrant textiles and the complexity that comes with working in developing economies. During a research project studying the local textile industry, Meghan saw both the talent and ambitions of the seamstresses and textiles vendors as well as the growth limitations their businesses faced.  By translating the textiles into trends that resonate with American pop culture, Afia opens up a much larger consumer market for Ghanaian textile vendors and seamstresses.

 Meghan graduated from the University of San Francisco with a BA in International Relations and Economics.  She learned to communicate her design ideas through courses at the FIT.