“The true beauty and highest value of jewellery shouldn’t start at the shop floor. It should start where it all began, and for me that’s at the community level. My intention has always been to bring the voice of Africa to fine jewellery, and part of this is ensuring that, where possible, I source gems from Africa and mines that adhere to environmental and human rights, as well as pay local taxes and treat miners decently with fair wages.”
Vania Leles, Creative Director & Founder
For Vania Leles, VANLELES is inextricably linked to her African heritage and the continent’s biggest offering to the world, its people. As a result, VANLELES carries at its heart the philosophy of community, compassion and empowerment.
VANLELES is a proud supporter the Malaika Foundation, a charity seeking to empower Congolese girls and their communities through education and health programs. VANLELES has donated school materials and clothes for the students, and to this day still supports two girls via the Malaika Foundation, Eugenie Kaya and Colette Kamimbi (the two girls with Vania).
In addition, she has created ‘Out of Africa’, a one-of-a-kind high-end jewellery collection crafted solely from responsibly sourced rubies and rubellite from Mozambique. Vania has also created ‘Legends of Africa’ – a unique high jewellery collection that pays homage to her homeland. The Sahara collection, a fair-trade gold and ethical diamond collection, was created in support of Women for Women International in 2017-2018.
During COVID-19, VANLELES took part in different initiatives to help and support African communities.
AfroChampions Initiative, under the auspices of the African Union Organization, was launched to provide a sustainable response to the pandemic across the continent. It set out to pool critical resources urgently needed for the procurement of medical supplies and commodities as well as providing socio-economic support to the most vulnerable populations in Africa. VANLELES contributed to this great cause by donating 30% of sales across all collections to the African Union COVID-19 Fund.
Malaika Foundation, has provided the Kabeluka village with clean water, educational facilities and programmes for the past 13 years. In doing so, it has touched more than a thousand lives each year and we hope that our continued support will bring awareness and additional funding at this time. During Covid-19 Malaika Foundation saw donations plummet, making it hard to sustain its mission to continue educating 346 girls while also feeding their families. This is why VANLELES pledged to donate 100% of the proceeds from our Nile Collection to the Malaika Foundation, from April 15th 2020 to June 15th 2020.
