Blog
We’re excited to bring you the second installment of our new made-in-Ghana series—a monthly blog and newsletter introducing you to the amazing handmade processes, cultural histories, and, of course, talented artisans behind our Ghana product lines! This week, we’re taking a behind-the-scenes look at our new recycled brass collection, made by hand, with heart, using the ancient art of lost-wax casting (trust us - it’s as cool as it sounds.)
Tucked away amidst shady banana trees, in the heart of the Krofrom village, lies Krofrom Brass—the artisan workshop behind the handcrafted home décor and jewelry pieces of our new brass product collection. The Krofrom workshop is run by Akwasi Nortey, master brass craftsman and father of four, who first learned the art as a child from his own father, who learned it from his.
Metal-working runs in Akwasi’s family and the art-form has been passed down from generation to generation, starting with his great-great grandfather who was the revered jewelry-maker of the Ashanti King and Chiefs, known for crafting elaborate gold adornments to be worn during official rituals and ceremonies. While at that time the fruits of metal-working were reserved only for those of the highest status, over the years the products became popularized and more and more people began to order and buy items made from silver, gold, and brass, which was less expensive.
Today, Akwasi helps keep the art of metal-working alive through his family business, which employs 11 people who use the ancient technique of lost-wax casting to create beautifully detailed pieces out of local recycled brass. But, you might be wondering, what does wax have to do with it? Keep reading to find out.
The whole handmade brass process, in fact, begins with wax. Step one? The artisans use beeswax to create a model of the object they would like to create. They then cover the model with a mixture of ash, palm fiber, and clay to make a protective mold (leaving an opening at the bottom.) Once the mold is dry, they place it in a pot over fire so that the beeswax inside will melt and seep out, leaving behind an empty cast of the item they wish to make. They then pour in melted brass, wait for it cool and harden, and finally crack open the mold, revealing beautifully golden shapes and designs that are then sanded and polished to become finished products.
We are in awe of this complex, magical process and the incredible handmade products that come out of it. It is a process that spans days—that involves remarkable knowledge, skill, artistry and patience to get just right—and is truly a labor of love for Krofrom’s artisans.
One of our newest products celebrates this handmade process, as well as the aspirations of those who have made it their lives’ work. Our new Indego Africa Brass Wishbone represents the wishes, hopes, and dreams of our artisan partners, while adding a beautiful, sculptural touch to any home.
In honor of this new product launch, we asked Akwasi about his wishes for the future—the future of his business, his family, and his community. Here’s what he shared with us:
“I would like to make a name for myself and be well known in my community as someone who taught young people the brass-making trade and helped them gain a source of income. I would like my children who are interested in the brass business to take over and expand our workshop, and I would support them in any way possible to help them learn the trade and continue the business. I would especially like to teach my daughter all aspects of the brass trade. There are very few females in the brass business and I would like her to be one of them. In the future, I hope to provide vocational training to young people in my community and open a shop in the city center to sell the beautiful brass products we make.”
We hope you are as inspired as we are by Akwasi’s wishes and by the beautiful handmade process that he and others use to create their brass masterpieces.
Last April, we published a story on ONE.org about the inspiring female entrepreneurs we work with in Rwanda. The piece featured students from the inaugural class of the Indego Africa Leadership Academy—an institution in Kigali, Rwanda dedicated to building powerful businesswomen, entrepreneurs, and leaders across the country.
This April—one year after their graduation—we sat down with these very same women to find out how their time at the Leadership Academy had impacted them. We wanted to know: How had their lives changed? How were they putting the business skills they had learned into action? And what were the results? The answers we got were nothing short of astounding.
But let’s take a step back. First, a few words on our Leadership Academy. The Indego Africa Leadership Academy, launched in October 2014, is a free-of-cost, six-month advanced business training program (the only one of its kind in Rwanda) that enrolls 25 students per semester. The program was created in response to the incredible achievements of some of our artisan partners who, having mastered our basic business training courses, were eager to take their education to the next level.
Students at the Leadership Academy study advanced lessons in accounting, marketing, supply chain management, product innovation, technology and more. They are then able to apply the knowledge they learn to the real-life context of their artisan enterprises, something which the World Bank contends is crucial for the long-term success and viability of business training programs in the developing world.
As one of our Leadership Academy graduates, Annonciatha, said: “Many people have vocational skills but lack business skills. Others have business skills and lack vocational skills. By combining both together, Indego Africa helps us use our knowledge to become truly competitive in the market.”
So, how are our Leadership Academy graduates using their knowledge outside of the classroom? For starters, all of our graduates have used the lessons they learned to improve the management of their businesses. They’ve set up new systems to track and manage inventory (Just walking into one of their workplaces allows you to see the difference—talk about organized shelves!); they’ve developed budgets; built out savings and growth plans; created new marketing strategies; diversified their products; instituted better bookkeeping systems and more.
As one of our graduates, Laurence, said about the artisan cooperative she is a member of, Abasangiye, “Before, we didn’t know much about how to manage a business. At the Leadership Academy, we learned how to organize our financial records, logging our expenses and revenues separately. We learned how to work with banks and opened up our first bank account. We learned the meaning of customer care and have improved the way we communicate with clients. We even created a plan to increase our revenue by 20 percent this year.”
Many students are using their Leadership Academy lessons to help generate new, local business for their artisan products. For example, one of our students, Marie Josee, said: “Before we didn’t know how to market our products. We used to sit around and wait for orders to come to us. Now, we go out into our communities and try to find markets on our own. For example, we started knitting uniforms and brought them around to local primary schools. At one of the schools, the principal loved them so much that she ordered sweaters from us on the spot.”
In addition to improvements made at their artisan cooperatives, many students have gone on to start their own businesses. While most have begun with small-scale enterprises (like selling agricultural goods or breeding livestock), others have hit the ground running with larger operations. For example, one of our graduates, Daphrose, recruited 14 people to band together and start a brick-building business, which now contracts up to 60 laborers per month depending on the project.
Daphrose said that before starting at the Leadership Academy, she noticed that there were a lot of construction projects going on in her community. She thought that there might be a good market opportunity there, but felt that she didn’t have enough money to get a business going, let alone the skills to manage it.
At the Leadership Academy, Daphrose learned how to create a viable business plan and gained the management knowledge and skills she felt she had lacked before. She also gained the confidence to recruit others from her community to set up a cooperative and pool their capital in order to get the business off the ground.
Together, they’ve created a plan to bring in 5 million Rwandan Francs by the end of the year (around $6,400 USD) and are well on their way to doing so, having already secured orders from several primary schools in their community. In Daphrose’s mind, “anything is possible if you set a goal,” and we have no doubt that she will be successful in meeting hers!
Many students also highlighted the way the Leadership Academy connects artisan women from across the country to help them learn from one another and build valuable networks. Since graduating, the Leadership Academy students continue to leverage these networks to support each other in myriad ways. For example, now when tourists come to Cocoki Cooperative and ask about where to buy traditional Rwandan baskets, Cocoki directs them to the sweetgrass-weaving cooperatives, Covanya and Imirasire. (You can find bracelets woven by women of the Imirasire Cooperative at the ONE store!)
Imirasire’s Leadership Academy graduates, recognizing the benefit of diversifying their group’s skill sets, hired the grads from Cocoki to teach their members how to sew. Since then, they have saved up money to buy several sewing machines and have begun a small apparel collection, which they showcase and sell from their workplace.
This spirit of mutual assistance—of collaboration and empowerment—is pervasive among all of our Academy graduates. As Jacqueline, the president of Twiyubake Cooperative and a Leadership Academy grad, expressed: “It’s important to me to use my knowledge to uplift others. It’s a cycle, and I want to give back.”
Today, our Leadership Academy graduates are doing exactly that—using their education to give back to their communities and make a difference in the lives of countless others. They are building powerful networks of skilled, confident, and hopeful women who are creating employment opportunities and economic growth across their country, all while setting new precedents for what women can achieve.
We couldn’t be more proud of the first graduating class of our Leadership Academy and are thrilled to report that the results continue to come in!
Of the 25 students in our second Leadership Academy class, 52 percent started a new business, 12 percent expanded a pre-existing business; and the remaining 36 percent plan to start a new business in the near future.
These women have employed eight additional people so far, with, we’re sure, many more to come!
As Annonciatha said, “There is where we have come from and where we are going. Twenty-two years ago, Rwanda was in a dark place. Today, our leaders are moving our country towards development, and we are helping them get there.”
To support our Leadership Academy and empower female entrepreneurs in Rwanda, click here.
A look at our Marketing & Brand Manager's recent trip to Rwanda & Ghana...Our Marketing & Brand Manager, Brittany Barb, just got back from two weeks in Rwanda and Ghana photographing the beautiful people, places and things that make up our Indego Africa community. From East Africa to West, Brittany was inspired by the vibrant colors, rich textures, and breathtaking landscapes she found throughout her travels. She has given us a behind-the-scenes look at her journey, sharing a few of her favorite images and moments from her time on the road. We hope you love them as much as we do!
We are so excited to announce our brand-new Made-in-Ghana Series—a monthly blog and newsletter introducing you to the handmade processes, cultural histories, and, of course, talented artisans behind our Ghana collections!First up? The hand-carved wooden pieces of our new Modern Traditions collection. Inspired by traditional African ritual dolls, warrior masks, and Bamileke stools, the Modern Traditions collection celebrates the time-honored techniques and stories behind hand-carved wooden crafts in Ghana, while adding modern design elements and details.
Wood-carving has a rich cultural history in Ghana. Legend has it that in olden times a man named Akwasi Yoyo traveled to the Ashanti kingdom of Denkyira, where he learned the craft of wood-carving. After mastering these skills, he brought his finished carvings back to his hometown (which today is called “Ahwiaa”) and showed them to the King. The King was so impressed that he instructed the entire village to learn and practice the art form. Since then, this beautiful craft has been passed down from family to family, generation to generation.
In the past, wood carving was used to create a wide range of items
including: household utensils, combs, baby raddles, and furniture; drums for festivals; masks for ritual dances; figurines for religious practices; and, perhaps most significantly, the Ashanti Kings’ and Chiefs’ sacred stools.
Indego
Africa’s partner artisan group, the Ahwiaa Wood Carvers Association, carries on his legacy by continuing the practice of traditional wood-carving today. Comprised of 65 artisans, the Association is located 30 minutes north of Kumasi, which is the capital of the Ashanti region and the heart of its artisan sector (as well as the bustling home-base of Indego Africa’s Ghana operations!)
The
Ahwiaa Wood Carvers are known for their incredible craftsmanship, as well as the striking intricacy of their products and designs. However, despite these remarkable skills, the Carvers are struggling to sustain their business. Given the increasing accessibility of commercial goods in Ghana, fewer and fewer Ghanaians are seeking out hand-carved wooden products for their day-to-day purchases, favoring instead more readily-available, mass-produced goods. In this shifting landscape, the art and practice of traditional Ghanaian wood-carving is at risk of dying out.
We at Indego Africa are enamored by the beauty and history of Ghana’s wood-carving tradition and are dedicated to supporting the artisans that continue to practice and preserve this craft. By partnering with the Ahwiaa Wood Carvers Association, we hope both to improve the livelihoods of Ghana’s wood carvers, as well as to create value and appreciation for their handmade craftsmanship around the world.
Our
new Modern Traditions collection features traditional African crafts and objects accented with elegant design details to create unique, storied objects that reflect the cultural history of Ghana while appealing to the design aesthetics and sensibilities of today’s modern global consumer.
Our new Fertility, Namji, Nyamwezi, and Fali Dolls are inspired by traditional Ashanti, Cameroonian, and Tanzanian ritual dolls that were thought to bring good luck to women trying to conceive, as well as health and happiness to expecting mamas-to-be. Historically, women would wrap and carry these dolls on their backs as if they were children, a practice believed to induce pregnancy and ensure a safe
delivery.
Our traditional Ashanti Fertility Doll is a pregnant woman carrying a baby on her back, which symbolizes a caring mother, both during pregnancy and after childbirth. These dolls have significance in each element of their design: they have a small mouth for a quiet baby, a large forehead for great intelligence, and a pregnant belly for good nutrition. We chose white beads to symbolize the innocence of the baby and love the delicate and elegant look they bring to the piece.
Our Warrior Masks are inspired by the traditional ceremonial pieces worn by Ashanti men during social and religious dance rituals. At one time, these masks were believed to bridge the gap between the spiritual and physical world, bringing the spirits of ancestors and forbearers to life. Warrior Masks were particularly significant in some of these rites, as they were meant to bring good luck to soldiers before battle.
Our custom collection of Warrior Masks features sleek brass inlays, intricate beadwork, and beautiful cowrie shells (an ancient form of currency) to create striking, yet refined décor pieces. Designed to be hung on walls, either alone or together, our Warrior Masks will add a touch of majestic elegance to any home.
Last but not least, our Cameroonian-inspired Bamileke stools feature carved wooden animal figures, lined with white and black beading, as well as cowrie shell accents. They are truly one-of-a-kind pieces that also celebrate the long-standing Ashanti tradition of carving sacred wooden stools for the King, Queen, and Ashanti chiefs.
We hope you love our Modern Traditions collection and the special
stories, traditions, and practices it honors. To shop the products, click here
Happy International Women’s Day! Today we are celebrating one of our newest artisan partners and favorite all-around-awesome woman, Josepha Mujawayezu. Josepha is the talented weaver behind our brand-new collection of mini raffia peace baskets. A mother of seven (!) and aspiring entrepreneur, Josepha first learned the art of weaving in the 1980s at a vocational school in Northern Rwanda. Despite her immense skill, for years she worked tirelessly on her own, struggling to scrape by with few customers for her products.
Without a steady source of income, Josepha often resorted to peddling her products on the street, something which on several occasions got her into trouble with the police. She describes that period of her life as filled with fear—fear that the police would arrest her; fear that she would not be able to provide for her family. We began partnering with Josepha in the fall of 2015, and we are so excited to see how much has changed for her since then. For starters, she’s no longer working on her own. With steady orders coming in for her products, Josepha has hired and trained 10 other women to work with her. In fact, they are banding together to form a cooperative, something which Josepha hopes will get them more local (and international!) business down the line. Josepha is excited about all these changes too. She told us: I’m excited because I have been receiving orders. I no longer have to be scared of the police and am building new skills by working on different Indego Africa sample products. Plus, registering as a cooperative has helped me become more confident because I had to interact with government officials. Josepha is also excited to be working with other women. She enjoys training them in new artisan skills and is happy to be able to provide younger women with the economic opportunities she wishes she once had. She says she now feels empowered: Being empowered to me means having the ability to provide for my family and myself without having to ask my husband. I earn an income and can pay for my children’s school fees—I can feed them, clothe them and even afford health insurance. We are so inspired by Josepha’s years of hard work and perseverance and are happy to see them finally paying off. On International Women’s Day, we are proud to celebrate a woman who has not only overcome a great deal of obstacles in life, but is using her newfound opportunities to empower and uplift others. Her spirit of generosity, collaboration, and mentorship is commendable and a strong testament to the power of women working together and supporting each other. Cheers to Josepha and to women around the world working towards better futures and lifting each other up along the way!
To shop Josepha's hand woven products, click here
We are so excited to be part of STORY’s newest installation, the F-Word! Launching on March 7th, just in time for International Women’s Day, the F-word is about celebrating Feminism and the amazing stories of women around the world (involving many other F-Words like Future, Fun, Fierce, and Family, to name only a few). Our favorite F-word? Femininity! To us, celebrating femininity is about celebrating the (many!) wonderful qualities of women around the world—especially the women we partner with in Rwanda & Ghana. We are thrilled to be able to showcase some of our partners’ products and stories at the F-Word, and we hope you’ll stop by to check them out!
Here
are all the deets: STORY is a
unique retail concept store that reinvents itself every four to eight weeks. The F-Word will run from March 7th – March 27th at 144 10th Ave. at 19th St. For more information about STORY and the F-Word, click here
In Rwanda, only 8% of young adults go to college. College tuition fees are high and, for many struggling families and individuals, the need for immediate income often outweighs the potential long-term benefits of higher education. Many of Rwanda’s youth go straight from high school and into workforce. Some go even earlier. When they do, they find themselves without job skills, searching for employment in an economy with few wage-earning jobs on the market. Where does this all lead? A not-so-great 63% youth underemployment rate throughout the country.
That’s where we want to help. Given the economic landscape for youth in Rwanda, there is a pressing need to equip young people—and especially young women, as they are less likely to be formally employed than men—with marketable skills to help them enter the workforce. So we put our heads together and came up with an idea – to create a brand-new Vocational Training program designed to address this exact challenge!
Launched on February 8th, our six-month-semester Vocational Training program provides underprivileged young women in Rwanda with artisan skills training and business education to help them improve their livelihoods and achieve financial independence.
How does it all work? Here’s the scoop: three days a week, 45 young women learn artisan skills at five of our partner cooperatives. The lucky five this semester? Twiyubake (banana leaf weaving); Ejo Hazaza (beading); Abasangiye (sewing); Imirasire and Covanya (both sweetgrass weaving).
The other two days a week, the young women gather in Kigali to take our Basic Business Training course where they learn fundamental business skills like bookkeeping, budgeting, quality control, marketing, and technology.
By combining artisan skills training with business education, our Vocational Training program will help young women in Rwanda achieve long-term economic security and prosperity. At the end of each six-month cycle, our goal is for the trainees to have the option to either join the cooperatives as full-time members, having mastered the skills necessary to produce products for local and international markets, or to start businesses of their own.
The young ladies participating this semester were all chosen from the local communities around our partner cooperatives. 89% of them currently do not earn income and the remaining 11% work odd jobs that do not earn steady or substantial pay. While they all graduated from high school, none were able to continue on to college because their families couldn’t afford it.
Therefore, they are eager to take advantage of this opportunity to gain valuable job skills. As one woman, Dancille (Imirasire Cooperative) enthusiastically stated, “I hope to learn how to weave baskets and how to run a business so I can start my own one day and employ others.”
Our Vocational Training program is not only valuable to the participating trainees, but also to our partner cooperatives themselves. Most of our artisan partners are survivors of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and the age demographics of their cooperatives are getting progressively older. They are excited about the opportunity to train and incorporate younger women in order to ensure the longevity and sustainability of their businesses in the long-run. This, in turn, creates opportunities for younger women to rise up as leaders, grow their cooperatives, and help generate economic activity and opportunity in their communities.
We are so excited about the possibilities that lay ahead for these young women as they seek to build brighter futures for themselves and for generations to come. They are motivated, ambitious, entrepreneurial, and ready for action. As one young woman, Olive (Twiyubake Cooperative), kindly noted: “Thank you Indego Africa for thinking about the youth and helping us support ourselves by learning new skills. I am ready and excited to put the knowledge I am receiving into practice.”To support our Vocational Training and provide life-changing opportunities for young women in Rwanda, click here
It’s official! After eight years in Rwanda, Indego Africa is now up and running in Ghana—bringing our mission of economic empowerment and education to artisans in the Kumasi region and beyond. But, you might be wondering, why Ghana? How did we decide to expand there and what has the process been like? Read on to have all your questions answered and be the first to get the inside scoop on our exciting initiatives to come!
Since the beginning of Indego days, it's been our vision to expand our organization beyond Rwanda and into further countries in Africa. Why? Because we are passionate about empowering female artisans across the continent and committed to equipping as many women as possible with the tools and resources they need to achieve their full potential.
However, before we could embark on such an expansion (and do so in a responsible, sustainable way) it was crucial for us to establish a strong foundation in Rwanda—to build out our programs, staff and infrastructure, validate our impact, and develop best practices along the way.
In 2013—with thousands of lessons taught, orders for our artisan partners on the rise, and a strong in-country team in place—we began the first stages of our country expansion due diligence process (much thanks to a grant from the AllPeopleBeHappy Foundation!) We conducted extensive research on ten different African countries, considering a wide range of factors such as infrastructure, governance, levels of corruption, human rights, logistics, pre-existing artisan activity and, most importantly, social impact needs.
We eventually narrowed down our selection to three countries: Ghana, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. It was a tough decision, but in the end we went with Ghana for several key reasons (and Ethiopia and Tanzania aren’t off the table for future expansions!) First, Ghana is a democratic, politically stable country with strong financial institutions, legal frameworks, and ease of doing business—factors which are important as they affect our ability to manage our supply chain, export products, and provide sustainable income for artisans.
Ghana also has a rich cultural tradition of craft-making, with a beautiful range of artisan techniques and products that differ greatly from those we work with in Rwanda—think brightly-woven kente cloth, intricate wood carvings, rustic bolga straw baskets, handmade ceramic beads, and more.
The most compelling reason behind our expansion to Ghana, however, was the deep need for social impact there. While Ghana has a higher GDP than Rwanda, it obscures the vast income inequality that affects the majority of its citizens. In Ghana’s poorest regions, women on average earn less than 50 cents per day, almost 70% are illiterate, and up to 50% have no formal education.
Despite these statistics, Ghana is a highly entrepreneurial country with undeniable dynamism—traveling through its busy streets it feels as though there is hardly anyone who isn’t hustling to make a living by selling some sort of product. While the energy is infectious, the overwhelming prevalence of people selling in the street illustrates the serious challenges that many Ghanaians face—lack of markets to sell their goods and lack of education needed to start and run businesses.
The artisan sector in Ghana is no exception. Despite their incredible talent and skills, local artisans struggle to find customers for their goods and do not earn consistent or sufficient income for their work. We at Indego Africa are committed to changing that!
As of October 2015, we are now partnering with eight artisan groups in Kumasi, the capital of Ghana’s Ashanti Region, to help them improve their livelihoods and succeed as entrepreneurs. We’ve hired two fantastic staff members and are growing our vibrant Ghana product collection (check out the good stuff here.) Our Basic Business Training programs start TODAY, February 2nd, with 50 students participating Tuesday and Thursday (25 students/class) for the next six months.
While our initial programs closely mirror those which have been so successful in Rwanda, it is important to note that, of course, there are some key differences between the two countries that have required us to adjust and recalibrate our model. For example, unlike artisans in Rwanda who almost uniformly work in structured cooperatives, artisans in Ghana tend to operate in loosely-affiliated groups and often work on their own. The artisan sector in Ghana is by and large younger than that of Rwanda and also more male-dominated, as many of the ancient crafts its artisans practice were at one time reserved for the Ashanti king and chiefs—a distinctly male domain.
While we are excited to support these male artisans, we are also fully committed to continuing our founding and driving mission of empowering women. Thus, we will take on a greater advocacy role in Ghana, educating and incentivizing local groups to employ more women, while also facilitating the formation of new women-owned artisan groups. We hope to better integrate women into the artisan sector, which will both increase its productivity and create a powerful multiplier effect across Ghanaian communities (women in the developing world on average invest 90% of their income in their families.)
The artisan sector is, in fact, the second largest employer in the developing world. Yet, despite its potential, the industry remains untapped as a resource for income generation, job creation, and economic growth. We are dedicated to changing this in Ghana, Rwanda, and beyond (!) by providing artisans with the access to markets, vocational training, and education they need to take their businesses to the next level. We hope you’ll stay tuned as we continue this adventure, creating a vibrant and empowering artisan sector for generations to come!
To support our Ghana initiative, please click here.
