Jewellery as a product is made by people from every corner of the country. Kenya is a multicultural society in that we have the cultures or ethnic groups with diverse value and cultural systems. Understandably therefore the art of bead making or jewellery is not specific to a given community or region. Most jewellery has a combination of locally sourced natural materials and tends to have an authentic touch identical with the cultural background of the producers or artist. Kenya has an abundant wealth of raw materials. These range from semi precious stones, cow or goat bones, horn, wood, seeds, leather items, decorated items from kisii soapstone, imported African traditional beads from different African regions in the south, west, east and central Africa. Other materials used are copper, brass, and aluminum to mention but just a few. However, the items need to be made more neatly inorder to command ready sale in overseas market. There are some jewellery products whose products are synonymous with the product or community e.g. the Maasai community and particularly the Maasai woman present distinctly rich variety of their traditional fashion accessories. Responding to the market trends and tastes or market driven designs and demand is very crucial in the marketing of jewellery products. To this end therefore, all efforts are made to come up with creatively designed product by using semi precious and natural materials in making items like brooches, bangles, bracelets, hair ornaments, ear rings necklaces etc. The point is there is already a wide range of creatively and cultural rich design of jewellery products available from Kenya that sells at differentiated price depending on the raw materials used.
The banana fibre products are popular for their household utility use. These are items like laundry basket, office waste paper basket, and fruit or egg trays. There are also banana fibre products that serve as house deco. These are art scenes depicting African culture, animals, and nativity products. Of late, the Kikuyu ethnic women community from central province have introduced Banana fiber "Kiondo" basket. Unlike the sisal baskets, the banana fibre "kiondo" do not need any colouring. As for the hand woven banana fibre basketry, the producers are based in Central and western province and even in slum areas. 90% of banana fibre basketry producers are middle-aged women who make the banana basketry to supplement their sources of income. It is also an activity that instills a sense of belonging and security. Most of the producers lifetime dream is to educate their children and acquire or build a better house which has a security of tenure. Like in most slum areas, a majority of the women take both the role of the bread earner and house head. There are many reasons behind it such as having been widowed, divorced or even migrated from rural areas in search of greener pastures in Nairobi just to find themselves in the slum life. Traditionally unlike men, women do not have property right or inherit from their place of origin thus rural land. Therefore their best alternative is to adapt to urban slum life where basic social amenities are not only lacking but inadequate to serve the usually high population of maginalized citizens. The problems that face the slum community and their rural counterpart is poverty and unemployment. Many of the slum dwellers rely on unreliable source of income such as temporary construction work while their women combine their respective source of income with child rearing among other household chores. In order to fight the odds against them, women unlike men have formed their own Banana fibre groups. The common objective is to work as a team as a way of seeking recognition and to empower the group members. This is realised through networking with the powers that be. These women slum groups, source the banana fibre raw material from the rural areas where banana plant is grown. The fibre are collected from the garden while dry and later softened by soaking the fibre overnight before usage.
Hotels,Restaurants,home - Utility Olive woodcarving and Bone batiks products of Various Designs
Home utility, Turkana Basketry Products of Various designs
Vesse Pot
Tulip Pot
Square Pot
Plate Pot
Box Pot
African ladies Bags/ Purse of Various Design
Home, hotel and Restaurant utility - African Basketry Products - Fruits/ bread laundry table mats of Various designs.
African ladies Bags/ Purse
Modern Look Ladies Hand Bags
Soapstone Sculpture
Nubian Utility and Deco Basketry Products
Nubian Utility and Deco Basketry Products
The products are made from domestic animal hides e.g. cow, goats, sheep. Some of the products are made from calabashes and other available local materials. The artisans making the drums have to make sure the hide is dry and well treated to avoid insects eating into the drum products. The above products are made by a group in Nairobi province. The production place is packed with a beehive entrepreneurial activities where intermingling of the people from all part of the city is the order of the day. Like any other place in the world where a high interaction of people from all walks of life takes place, instances of mugging, beggary, petty crimes, theft from the car, pick pockets e.t.c. is inevitable. We do therefore advise our customers during such visit to be careful with their personal effects just like what they would do in other part of the world with a high interaction of people
The traditional pots are made by women group based in Nyanza and Central provinces of Kenya. The special raw materials used are all sourced locally. . The product is rooted to the African culture as a domestic utensil. However, new patterns or design in line with peoples cultural background is evident from the wide range of utility pottery product available. With the increasing export demand of pottery product as a handy product for domestic use, more and more producer groups are taking the trade as an important source of income which is in turn also enabling us to promote pottery utility items in line with our African cultural heritage. However, it is important to add that the products are made according to indigenous labour intensive methods using local materials. It is also important to stress here that these traditional African pottery product are environmental friendly and non-harmful. They have been in use for centuries.
Small Pot
Long Neck Fish Pots
