Feedback: Textiles: Michelle Y. Payne, US

I was ecstatic when I received my Mudcloth Shawls today! They are every bit as beautiful as I thought they would be. I will be telling all my friends and family about them and about eshopafrica.com! My dream is to someday travel to Africa. Being able to purchase goods from eshopafrica.com makes it possible for me to enjoy a little bit of Africa in my home in the meantime. I read the bios on the different artists and I feel honored to be able to help support their efforts and I believe that this business venture is truly a blessing to many.  Keep up the great work and please thank the artisan that made my mudcloth shawls! I plan on displaying one on my wall and the other on a table. Thank You Again.

The Economist mentions our Nokia coffin

The Economist 10 Mar 2005
Our Nokia Mobile Phone coffin was mentioned in the Technology Quarterly of the Economist in a piece about the sprituality of mobile phones. Read the article or see the photos of the Nokia Mobile Phone coffin being made in the eShopAfrica.com coffin gallery

Media: Fortune Small Business Magazine: Coffins to Die For

In Ghana what you do in life determines the style of your burial. The Ga tribe, located in the country's capital Accra, models coffins to reflect their occupants hobbies and occupations from peacocks for bird lovers to airplanes for pilots. Now five-year-old exporter eShopAfrica.com is giving the burial vessels new life above ground in the living rooms of Europe and America. British-born founder Cordelia Salter, spent two decades in Africa in technology development before moving to Rome, where she decided to start a company that would give Ghanaian artisans an escape from exploitive practices. "One artist we use, Samuel Naah, paid off his apprentice fees with two commissions from us. Now he has his own business," says Salter.


Feb 05




Order your own Ga chest from the eShopAfrica.com online shop:


Find out more in this book:

Going into Darkness: Fantastic Coffins from Africa

Gallery: Out and About: SIAO 2004

SIAO is the International arts and crafts fair held every year in Ougadougou capital of Burkina Faso. Trish Graham eShopAfrica's Product Sourcer went in 2004 with her friend Ren Englebrecht. Here's their photo essay. Text by Trish, photos by Ren.








 
 Tuareg tea...   
It was overwhelming. Booth after booth of textiles, carvings, beads. Tuaregs everywhere. Ren bought a lot of silver on the first day so every time I turned around there they would be flirting with their eyes and trying to sell me more. They kept offering to make me Tuareg tea - a deadly concoction, sort of tea espresso. They have little wire baskets shaped like a goblet, which they fill with burning charcoal, and a tiny enamel tea pot sits on top. But it was Ramadan and they were fasting so although they offered tea I never got any.


 
Sleeping gauze...
The Mauritanian women were there with their gauzy intricately tie-dyed lengths of cloth. Often, in the heat of the afternoon if you passed their booth you couldn't tell the women sleeping among the piles of gauze from the gauze itself. Only a hand, or a foot would suddenly show and you would realize there was a woman there.


Appropriate technology...   
There was an outside covered area dedicated to small technology and coops. There were wonderful foot water pumps, and my favorite, an ambulance which attached to the back of a motor cycle so it could navigate the small local trails. There was also a motorcycle taxi trailer attachment that could seat 6 people. I do think it would have taken quite a strong engine to pull it, but the idea was clever.




Women artisans...
While there, we met a wonderful woman from the Association Sinignasigui, a cooperative of women artisans from the town of Dedougou, in Burkina Faso. She had beautiful hand woven cloth and table cloths.


Peace Corps Baba...   
Another highlight of the time was Oumar Cisse, or Peace Corp Baba as he is often known. This larger than life character bounces around his booth, cackling and shouting "African Power". I first found his stall because the boys who were selling the huge aluminum cooking pots across the way were beating out a powerful rhythm on their pots. He was there, festooned with mud cloth, cowry shells and amber and dancing. At his booth, I had time for long talks about amber, silver and his museum in Mopti, Mali. The man knows his beads and has become an international designer, taking part in fashion shows in Paris, Marseilles, Montreal and of course, Mopti.





Warthog teeth...
Another afternoon was spent with Okechukwu Echere, a Nigerian bead seller and designer. He had mounds of wonderful brass beads from Cote d' Ivoire, and piles of intriguing warthog teeth. When I questioned him about the environmental impact of killing warthogs, I was assured that warthogs are very prolific and have MANY children, so it was not a problem. This I don't know, but they looked a fair bit like ivory and his necklaces featuring them were stunning.








Textiles galore and more...   
There was the old Aso Oke from Nigeria, Fulani blankets, that had been over dyed in indigo, making the other colors meld into a soft bluey rainbow. I got a huge, soft Dogon blanket, hand-woven from locally grown and spun cotton, with intricate indigo dyed patterns. There were glowing tapestries hand woven in Dakar, Senegal, and lots and lots of mud cloth from all over Mali. We bought wonderful Indigo cloth from the ladies of Guinea Conakry. There were brass beads and statues from Burkina, leather puffs and Tuareg leather pillows, antique carvings and masks and new carvings and masks. Part of one hall was dedicated to local agricultural products of cashews, dried mangos and paw paw, and mounds of strange herbs to cure every ill you could think of, (but all in French, so I was not tempted).



Party time...
There were stands from Algeria, South Africa, Rwanda, and all of West Africa. The main stage had a constant show of west African musicians and cultural performers going from about 4 pm on.



Great place to shop...   
Ren and Trish (on the right) with their bags full to overflowing with all the great things they bought. They'll be back!!!

Find out more about SIAO, the International arts and crafts fair in Burkina Faso:   

SIAO
01 BP 3414 Ouagadougou 01
Burkina Faso

Tel (00226) 50 37 32 56/57
Email sgp@siao.bf
Website www.siao.bf

Feedback: Textiles: Sheila Basey, US

I just wanted you to know that I received the Mudcloth shawls this morning and I am estatic! They are wonderful.

Finalist in "Global Junior Challenge"

eShopAfrica was a finalist in the "Global Junior Challenge" a competition that is dedicated to all young people, from school children to teenagers and youths taking their first steps on the job market. It is open to cities, institutions, local authorities, businesses, NGOs, communities and individual citizens and all those who are interested or involved in child and youth education and training, and more broadly, in helping in the construction of a more inclusive society.

One of the aims of eShopAfrica is to put money and prestige back into the African artisan sector. Many of our artisans express a wish to be able to give their children a decent standard of living and education so that they remain with the family and inherit the skills instead of moving away to urban areas. Visit the Global Junior Challenge website

What's it like to work for eShopAfrica?

Deborah Jones, a UK post graduate volunteered to work for eShopAfrica during the summer of 2004. Although she is still continuing her studies she wanted to know what it was like to work for an African fair trade arts and crafts business. We were very happy to have her! As well as helping out in the office she helped survey our artisans on what their goals and aspirations are.

As an outsider coming from the UK she was full of ideas and initiated a bead marketing campaign for UK beadshops. She also had some good ideas to make the website better.

Deborah is now continuing her studies at the School of African and Oriental Studies in London and we wish her all success and hope that she'll come and visit us in Ghana again soon.

This is what she said about us:

"Working for eShopAfrica in Ghana taught me that whilst running a business in Africa is challenging, it is also immensely rewarding.

Part of the work I did out there was to interview the artisans about their plans and ambitions. Before I went, I thought the company had set itself a big challenge in helping these people earn a good living from selling their products, but I was not prepared for how enterprising and resourceful these men and women were. I was really impessed by their plans to speed up production and break into new markets.

The challenge they faced on a day to day basis; competition from others selling similar goods, the difficulty of getting hold of raw materials and the pace of life in Ghana, which means everything takes a long time, were akin to the challenges eShopAfrica faces. I really liked the fact there was no conflict of interest between the artisans who were all trying to develop their businesses, and the company that buys from them. They are all small concerns, but they can, and are, helping each other."