Meet Franki
Hello, my name is Francisca Turner Shaik, or Franki, in short. Franki is also the namesake behind Frankitas- ‘Franki’ short for Francisca and ‘tas’ meaning bag in Indonesian.
I started Frankitas in 2014 after I had my 3 children in Malaysia with an aim to not only produce beautiful unique pieces for you, but also an aim to build a sustainable community of weavers in Asia and beyond - to preserve the art of tradition and heritage - as well as impacting different marginalized communities by working alongside them. This is an important element to me, merely because I was a product of the saying “it takes a village to raise a child.” It was my Indonesian grandparents and the entire village in West Java, Indonesia that raised me for 9 years. I learnt from an early age that when you look after your community, the community will look after you too in many folds.
I am also a strong believer in a community driven business whereby our supply chain can positively impact the lives of others as well as the environment. This is one of the reasons why we work with either directly with the weavers in rural and remote communities or with organisation that represents - ensuring their livelihood is looked after fairly.