Beading - Import export

In 2003, American citizen Valerie Garber started an NGO, Work of Our Hands, in Five Rand Kamp, an informal settlement of Okahandja, Namibia. It currently supports 13 formerly disadvantaged women with skills transfer and craft education. The women are taught the art of making jewellery using wire and beads; and also crocheting wire to make attractive, durable adornments for the wrist and the neckline, in colours and hues compatible with the most sophisticated of wardrobes. The ceramic beads used to make the jewellery, earrings in particular, are also handmade by the women of the project making every item a unique piece of art. Each handmade item of jewellery is accompanied by the name and a small photograph of its creator, adding dimension to the beautiful items. The income generated by sales of the jewellery benefits the disadvantaged women involved in the project, to purchase raw materials, pay rents and sales staff.

At Rosa Marukuavi Kahuna’s stall visitors will find a provocative collection of eco-friendly, low-cost jewellery handmade from natural materials such as glass beads, calabash, bone, horn, seeds, even recycled paper. Rosa was taught how to make ear, neck and arm/wrist adornments by the previous owner. She now manages and stocks the stall herself, expressing her fine sensitivity for the diverse preferences of customers who desire a combination of contemporary and rural traditional designs. Hand-painted leather key-rings, wooden and ostrich shell hairclips, handmade greeting cards and an assortment of wire-craft are also available. Rosa also supports home-crafters by purchasing selected items from them she knows will suit her particular group of customers, and in so doing, has stimulated a small, mutually beneficial eco-system around her stall.

Angelika Eichas is the creative mind behind a range of wired, beaded and recycled light-fittings, lampshades, mobiles and decorative craft for the home. Using recycled material such as beer-bottle tops, caps, wire, bicycle tyres, makalani shells and old zinc sheets, Angelika creates a remarkable variety of popular lampshades and light-fittings. Combining rural Namibian colour palettes (earthy browns, rusty reds, sandy tans) with bright, shiny wire-mesh or dulled rusted wire, lends an almost otherworldly ‘look and feel’ to the mobiles and light-fittings. The handmade light-fittings in particular are versatile enough to stylishly compliment the interiors of both chic urban and elegant, rural farmsteads. The natural materials (acacia seeds, old zinc, pips, pods, and driftwood) combined in the making of the mobiles, a welcome addition to any home, betray an artistically-oriented patterned organisation.