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Siyakwamukela! Welcome!
We welcome you to our home. Here you will find a wealth of African arts & crafts produced by the artisans of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Beautiful baskets, telephone wire, all are available here. Telephone wire baskets are our speciality, but we have recently added some items made from recycled materials.
Beware of Cultural Theft!
For many of the artisans we work with, the craft that they produce is not a hobby, but a means of survival. The money that they earn from their efforts help them to put a little more food on the table, educate their children and assists with the day to day cost of living.
While we are not a member of any Fair Trade Organisation, we subscribe to the following Fair Trade principles • Fair financial return for effort. • No child labour where this may affect the schooling and quality of life for the children concerned. However, it is part of Zulu tradition that craft skills are learnt as a child but we monitor this stringently to make sure that engaging in craft activities does not become exploitative or compromises schooling. • We do not handle any wood carvings made with new wood as this practise has lead to serious deforestation in some parts of Africa. We do handle some pieces that incorporate wood carving as we are certain that the wood is harvested in a sustainable manner, under the auspices of accredited conservation bodies.
The goods available on this website is but a small reflection of what is available. Enquiries for custom orders are always welcome as the one thing we have to spare is capacity. There are so many desperately poor people who would love to be able to augment their social grants that we regularly run training workshops. What we need the most is orders to keep all these people busy.
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