Gifty Serbeh-Dunn was born and grew up in the City of Wa in Northern Ghana in West Africa, the Shea Butter Capital of the World. She is now a leading expert in the world regarding Shea Butter: the production, the marketing, and the benefits. Shea Butter products possess amazing qualities for the skin and hair but can also provide the producing women with a fair price which supports them, and their families, their climb out of poverty.
In 1981 when Gifty moved to Canada she was amazed that North America was unaware of Shea Butter. Gifty’s knowledge of Shea Butter impassioned her with the need to share Shea Butter with Canada and the U.S.A. Gifty started experimenting in 1999 by adding essential oils and other natural materials marketing her products in little brown glass containers.
Travelling to Ghana in 2003 Gifty met the Tapko Widow’s Group, a group of widows from a northern Ghana village who had banded together to help each other better feed and educate their families. A main activity was gathering Shea Nuts and producing Shea Butter from those nuts. Marketing and a fair price were a serious issue for the women who did not have access to a bank account and connections with the world outside of the village was limited relying on men for that connection. Recognizing the quality Shea Butter produced and the righteous cause, Gifty purchased 1,000 pounds of Shea Butter on the spot and shipped it to Canada.
Then Gifty launched her first commercial Shea Butter business in North America, SheaCare, introducing North America to quality Shea Butter. Working from her kitchen producing product, Gifty’s customers continuously informned her what Shea Butter had done. Amazing stories about soothing dry, cracked, and bleeding skin; saving savaged lips; and healing bedsores. Those stories became commonplace. Continuing to develop her business while proudly providing economic sustenance to the women of the Tapko Widow’s Group, Gifty’s businesses grew as did the economic sustenance to the women of the Tapko Widow’s Group. Gifty fervently believes that business can, and should, be a force for good. That doing business right means everyone (not just Gifty or her business) benefits: the women that produce, the natural environment (educating the women to protect the trees by allowing the trees to do their part: removing carbon dioxide from the air and helping in the battle against greenhouse gases and global warming), the people like you who use Shea Butter in the manufacture of your product, and your customers. Join Gifty in Tampa to learn more about her knowledge of Shea Butter and the Ghanaian women who produce Shea Butter. Come, ask questions.
Gifty co-founded Baraka Shea Butter (“Baraka”) in 2011 located on Vancouver Island in Canada. A 50% Owner of Baraka, Gifty separated from Baraka in July 2024 and subsequently joined Essential Depot as the Greener Life Ambassador for the African Continent. As an ambassador Gifty’s stewardship is to educate the world on Shea Butter and ship over 150,000 Greener Life Club (GLC) boxes of Ghanaian products over the next 2 years. Those GLC Boxes are already in Wa being filled with product.