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Products
Meet the Producers
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Creative Alternatives
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Creative Alternatives trains individual artisans in Western Kenya in the art of making crafts from readily available and environmentally sound materials. Water hyacinth—a weed that is clogging Lake Victoria—, tin sheets of misprinted bottle caps, recycled wire, tin cans, and discarded phone cards, all find new lives as the artisans of Creative Alternatives create greeting cards, ornaments, jewelry, and functional products, which they sell to provide a sustainable livelihood for their families. Operating under the auspices of Fair Trade, Creative Alternatives ensures the craftspeople with whom it works are paid a fair price for the products they produce.
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Esther Kariuki
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Esther Kariuki is an independent artisan who, in her area of Kenya, near Kitui, has organized and trained women in her village to use the dried fiber of the banana plant, which would normally be discarded. The banana fiber is first dried, and then a light varnish applied. Once this process is complete craftspeople cut the fiber into thin strips to make several different items, including boxes, Bao Bab trees and mobiles. The varnish on the banana fiber with its many tones of brown resembles textured tortoise shell.
Esther ensures the craftspeople are paid a fair wage for their goods, which has enabled many in her small village to earn a sustainable wage.
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Jacaranda Workshop
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Jacaranda Workshop is associated with the Jacaranda School For the Mentally Disabled in Nairobi, Kenya. The group primarily makes jewelry, a skill that they learned at the workshop. The jewelry is entirely handcrafted from brass and hand-made beads, most of which are ceramic and are glazed and fired at the workshop. The workshop provides employment for thirty mentally challenged adults.
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Jedando Handicrafts
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Working with more than 100 individual carvers in Machakos, Kenya, Jedando Modern Handicrafts markets products primarily made of wood and bone worldwide. Carving is a tradition in Kenya with the children learning the craft from their parents. Carved by hand using only rudimentary hand tools, olive wood bowls, salad serving sets, and animal-shaped napkin rings take shape from pieces of olive wood, mahogany, and mpingo, or “African Ebony.” An integral part of the organization’s function is to educate the craftspeople on the need for reforestation to enable the products to be available for years to come and offer a sustainable income for generations.
While wood carving provides the major income for many in the Machakos area, other craftspeople earn a living by further enhancing the products including painting the napkin rings and carving discarded animal bone for the handles of salad serving sets. Often the bone is “batiked” by placing wax on the white bone and dipping the bone a dark brown/black dye, resulting in patterns African mud cloth designs.
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Kahero Farm
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Kahero Farm is just about 10 miles north of the Equator in the Great Rift Valley. It was a forest many years ago where people cut down trees for firewood and charcoal.
The new owners of the farm saved the brown olive (olea africana) stumps of trees that were cut down decades earlier and taught the local herdsmen to carve bowls and spoons from the aged wood. No two bowls are alike. Every bowl is made according to the grain in the wood. The only power tool is a chain saw used to cut the stumps into workable pieces. After that, the carvers use machetes, chisels, and other homemade tools, some made from old harrow disks. The bowls are finished with broken glass bottles and sand paper and are then dipped in liquid paraffin, which protects the beauty of the wood.
There is no carving workshop on Kahero Farms. The workshop is where the herdsman sits chipping away while watching the sheep and cattle in the field. The herdsmen are paid a fair price for the pieces they create.
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Kenya Gatsby Trust
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Kenya Gatsby Trust (KGT) is a not for profit organization whose main objective is poverty eradication and wealth creation through support of the Micro and Small Enterprise sector in Kenya. KGT’s current program focus is to facilitate access and sustainability of markets for Kenyan products.
In addition to promoting traditional Kenyan crafts, KGT has begun working with the World Wildlife Fund on a conservation and recycling project in Kiunga Marine National Reserve, which includes creating products from discarded flip flops found on the beaches.
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Paul Muragu
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Only in my jewelry can all of Africa get along, Paul Muragu says, smiling. Working in a shed the size of a telephone booth in the Nairobi Westlands, Paul invites the bead enthusiast in for a view of his wall of beads that range from Ethiopian silver, to seeds, to glass, to bone, to aluminum pendants made from old Kenyan cooking pots. He has beads from Mali, Niger, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Ghana, and many parts of Kenya, just to name a few. He makes many of the metal beads himself and buys glass beads from a womens cooperative in Nairobi that makes the beads from recycled glass. Paul loves to tell the secrets of the beads -- which promote fertility, which ward off the evil eye -- each beaded necklace is a microcosm of Africa.
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Shanzu
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Started as a Girl Guide project in Eastern Kenya in 1992, Shanzu Transitional Workshop enables young women with disabilities to gain skills that enable them to become productive and confident members of the community and society.
The girls arrive at Shanzu at the age of 17 to start a two year training program. During their stay they learn production skills and tailoring, as well as gain basic business experience and a vast array of other skills. Upon completion of the two-year training, each girl leaves with a tailoring qualification, a sewing machine and personal skills that better equip her for an independent life. Many of the graduates continue to work with Shanzu, producing products for export orders.
The girls and graduates are paid a share of the profits when their work is sold to tourists and passers-by and now internationally through fair trade organizations. All of the products carry the distinctive Shanzu patch, not hidden inside but proudly sewn where everyone can see it.
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SMOLArts
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SMOLArt is a group of artists who live in the rural village of Tabaka, Kenya, the heart of soapstone crafts. The name, a shortened version of Small, Medium, and Large Artists, refers to the size of the products the artisans make, not their stature. Established in 1990, SMOLArt is a member of IFAT, the International Fair Trade Association, and as such assures that the artisans are paid a fair price for their work. In addition, the organization support community development by contributing to projects that improve living conditions, education, and health of their members and the village at large.
Soapstone is mined from great pits in the area surrounding Kiisi, Kenya. The mined stone is then delivered to carvers who carve sculptures from the natural stone, the color of which ranges from cream, to pink, to brown, to yellow, to black, to a marbling of all of them. Once carved, the craftspeople smooth rough edges with sandpaper dipped in water and polish the piece to a high gloss or paint African motifs in brilliant colors with etched accents.
All of the products are completely handmade. The tools consist of household items from screwdrivers, hand drills, to switchblades. "Pangas," sword-like tools usually used for cutting down vegetation, are used to cleave the stone in the mines.
Soapstone, while very heavy, is very fragile. It is a form of talc, so standing water will affect the carvings. The paint used may also run if subjected to standing water. Light polish keeps it shiny. Chips can be smoothed with water and light grade sandpaper. With proper care, soapstone items will last generations.
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TEMAK
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The sign for the Teenage Mothers Association of Kenya (TEMAK) indicates that it is "the last house towards the Obunga slums," the most destitute area of Kisumu. Many of the unwed mothers and young girls who come to TEMAK to learn job skills live in these slums. TEMAK is an organization that offers job training in tailoring, hairdressing, secretarial skills, craft making, and recently computers to unwed mothers, girls, and others in the Obunga slum community. As a community center, the organization also provides the community with an educational forum for HIV/AIDS awareness and other health issues.
Many of the young women at TEMAK participate in making crafts, earning income to support themselves and their families. In the past few years, TEMAK has also become a craft center for the artisans and craftspeople in the town of Kisumu by providing local and international sales outlets that make available a sustainable income for many in the community.
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UniquEco
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Thousands of discarded flip-flops wash up on the African shoreline. This indestructible rubber creates an environmental disaster for the marine eco-system as it spoils the natural beauty of the beaches, is mistakenly swallowed by marine feeders, and prevents hatching turtles reaching the safety of the sea. Realizing that this flotsam brings a limitless resource to coastal communities in Kenya, UniquEco works with locals to collect and re-cycle discarded waste. The product range is diverse, from unique accessories and jewelry to one-off sculptures of amazing ingenuity, humour and beauty.
UniquEco provides a sustainable wage for unskilled beachcombers and bead-makers, to artisans and sculptors, allowing local people to maintain their way of life yet also provide for a better future for themselves and their families.
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