Now this does not happen often! So actress Rosario Dawson was at the Vlisco Women’s Month Awards held in Accra on Saturday night and I didn’t spot her. I only got to know she was there after my buddy Anne shared her selfie with Rosario on Facebook, and guess what? I was right behind them. Rosario Dawson, who has appeared in films such as Kids, Men in Black II,  Sin City,  Rent, Alexander, Unstoppable, and Trance was in Ghana as part of the Studio One Eighty Nine creative project, owned by hers and Abrima Erwiah.

Launched in 2012, Studio One Eighty Nine helps creatives in Africa—from designers and photographers to foodies and activists—promote their wares. Think of it as Pinterest meets Etsy. In conjunction with the platform, they’ve also launched a line called Fashion Rising that directly employs Africans, trains them through pop-up fashion schools, and provides the kind of market feedback they need to dominate the fashion scene.

Despite the abundance of talent in Africa, artisans there aren’t able to easily sell goods across the globe. “For some reason, something made in Africa doesn’t hold the same weight as something made in Italy,” Dawson says. That doesn’t make sense, considering the same handcrafted care and skill you’d see put into making clothing and accessories in Italy is found in Africa.

“You can see it in all of the different brands that go down to Africa and say, ‘We’re going to do a Masai collection, or we’re going to do the Africa-inspired collection,’ ” says Dawson. When you buy an African-inspired piece, you’re buying a garment that’s probably made in a Chinese factory before being sold by a European fashion label. “It was inspired by Africa, but it wasn’t made there, and it doesn’t benefit [Africa]. And that doesn’t make any sense,” said Dawson in an interview with takepart.com