Gogo Olive is a business based in Zimbabwe that helps women become entrepreneurs and leaders who support their own communities
After travelling to Kenya during a gap year, a passion was birthed in Julie Hagan’s heart that would lead her to use her family’s knitting legacy to start a business and a charity. Connecting continents through entrepreneurship, Gogo Olive empowers women in Zimbabwe to use their knitting skills to make an income to pour back into their communities.
Growing up in Northern Ireland, Julie remembers frequently seeing her beloved Granny Olive sitting and knitting: “We had a close relationship, and she was always knitting jumpers for missionaries in Africa. From a young age, I also learned to knit.”
In her early years, Julie’s parents felt God lead them to move from Northern Ireland to Orkney in Scotland, where Julie grew up going to church and made lots of good Christian friends. She also worked part-time in a knitwear shop.
Later on, as part of her architecture degree at Edinburgh University, Julie spent four months in Kenya with Tearfund in 2004: “That was the start of my love for the continent. The minute I got home, I just wanted to know: ‘How can I get back there?!’ After looking into different options, I ended up going to Zimbabwe, India and Australia with Oasis Trust the following year – in 2005/06.”
Drawn back
During her time in Zimbabwe, Julie served a local church by doing youth work, working with street kids and visiting the elderly. As her time there ended, Julie casually commented to the pastor how much she loved being in Zimbabwe. He immediately responded: “Why don’t you come back?”
That question remained with Julie as she travelled back to Orkney, so she started praying and figuring out a way to return to Zimbabwe. She worked to save enough money to go back and, in 2007, Julie and a friend from her Oasis team boarded a 24-hour flight back to serve in the church’s youth work once again. The ministry was thriving, and although Julie enjoyed it, she started to have a desire to create a more permanent impact.
God gave me a picture of a group of women sitting in a circle, knitting together, laughing and singing together
With over 90 per cent unemployment in Zimbabwe, it’s really tough for women to find work. One day, a Zimbabwean lady approached Julie and asked her to take a floral cross-stitch piece she had made and sell it back in the UK. This caused Julie to start pondering what handicraft items made in Zimbabwe could be marketable as a potential business. “I was always a knitter, and growing up working at a knitwear shop, I had an idea of how creating designs and selling products worked.”
Julie went home to Orkney for Christmas 2007 and started praying about how to help the women in Zimbabwe start a business. “God gave me a picture of a group of women sitting in a circle, knitting together, laughing and singing together. It was the first time in my life I could say that I heard God ‘speak’.”
Gogo Olive is born
With no real business experience, but a determination that God had spoken, Julie decided to go for it. For the next eight months back in Zimbabwe, Julie spent her evenings and any other spare time she had, making designs for knitted animals and sourcing materials.
One day, she shared her idea with the manager of a project that supported street children. The manager immediately replied: “Yesterday I was in prison with Prison Fellowship and the women were knitting jumpers with bits of wire!”
Julie knew this was another confirmation that God was behind her idea. After they approached the prison and asked to start a knitting group, they were immediately welcomed in.
In 2008, Gogo Olive’s first knitting groups started – three widowed women from the Street Children project, and three women in the prison. Everyone was enthusiastic and excited to learn. They would meet once a week, do some worship and devotions, eat together and learn to knit. The women knitted 56 monkey figures just in time for Christmas 2008– and they sold out in two days back in the knitting shop in Orkney!
Finding a home
It was the height of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe*, and prices of goods would skyrocket and change even within a day. It wasn’t legal to pay staff in US dollars at that time, so it was tricky for Gogo Olive to pay the women so they could get the full value of their earnings. They found ways around this by paying the women daily or shopping themselves for whatever the ladies needed. Today they are able to pay the women in US dollars.
Women from the prison groups are given the option to join Gogo Olive when they complete their sentence, offering a chance for a new start and hope for the future, which is where the logo of Gogo Olive came about: the olive branch that the dove brought back to Noah’s ark after the Flood. The name Gogo Olive is inspired by Julie’s granny, (‘Gogo’ means granny in Zulu). Granny Olive and her mum taught Julie to knit.
Since 2008, the Gogo Olive knitting groups have grown in numbers, with around 40 women working at workshops most of the time. After renting a space for several years, Julie started praying that Gogo Olive would have its own home in a permanent building. Then when Julie was back in the UK, someone gave her a prophetic word at the worship camp, David’s Tent, including the verses from Isaiah 54:2: “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”
Julie felt God was confirming the desire to buy a property for Gogo Olive and soon found the perfect place with a garden for £100,000. “In August 2019, we started our campaign to raise this money, and just a year and a half later, we did – despite COVID! Having our own place is amazing and it’s given the ladies a sense of security. They know that we’re here for the long haul.”
In 2024, Gogo Olive was even able to build a place of safety at the bottom of the garden for women who needed it. It’s a harsh reality that if women have to flee their homes or leave prison, they often have nowhere to go. Two bedrooms and a bathroom at Gogo Olive means women can be offered refuge and hospitality when needed.
God’s grace has created a thriving business
Gogo Olive continues to thrive, 17 years on, selling all over the world via wholesale orders from Zimbabwe and the online shop, which was launched six years ago. All the knitted items are available online, as are cards that show the knitters.
In a setting where education is hard to access, Gogo Olive runs life skills workshops on topics such as HIV and AIDS, parenting and budgeting. They also have fun days, with games and trips where the women can rest and have fun. They even have an emergency fund for medical care expenses, giving the women a sense of security that if they need support, it is there.
Julie is now married and a mother of one, having moved back to Scotland in September 2020, and she travels back to Zimbabwe once a year. She recalls that there have been many challenges along Gogo Olive’s journey, but God has always brought the right people along at the right time – including her sister, who travelled to Zimbabwe and stayed for four years, and still works for Gogo Olive two days a week.
“Every time I saw God provide for Gogo Olive, my faith grew. Today we have four paid staff [management] on the ground in Zimbabwe, and eight charity trustees. We are both a business and a Christian charity.
“I never imagined we would get this far! I’m so thankful to God – he has always led us, and I’m excited to see where he leads us next. This summer, I’m taking [most of] the women to see some of the animals they knit in real life for the first time – we are going on a two-day safari!”
* Between 2007 and 2009 there was a severe case of hyperinflation, due to excessive money printing to finance government spending. There was a dramatic collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar, and prices fluctuated daily – sometimes even doubling.
If you’d like to support the women at Gogo Olive, you can get your hands on their adorable knitted items at gogo-olive.com/shop-2-2/ and Julie has kindly offered 10 per cent off to Woman Alive readers: simply use the code ‘womanalive10’.
Words by Becky Hunter Kelm
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