Group weaving beautifully through adversity

Hand woven baskets have for long been a necessity in every home in the Meru community. They are used for storing cereals and carrying various items.

Due to this, basketry and weaving skills were handed down through generations to the girl child, which explains why most of the women in the area are experts in weaving and crocheting.

About three kilometres from Meru town, at Gachanka, a group of women sit in a circle. Besides their usual table banking activities, each of the women has her hands busy weaving or crocheting. Muukuru Kendi Women Group has been meeting for several years, going about their usual business.

This was until Tharaka Green Gold, a body that exports handmade baskets, introduced them to crocheting. They are among the newly recruited basket weavers in an initiative that targets the multibillion-dollar export market.

According to the Kenya Integrated National Export Development and Promotion Strategy, the global handicrafts market was projected to grow to Ksh94 trillion (USD857 billion) by 2020.

Indoor decoration

By 2018, Kenya was exporting handicrafts valued at about Sh1.6 billion. To capture this market, the baskets are specially hand made with unique patterns and colours. This makes the final product ideal for indoor decoration as well as for fashion. Miriam Mwari, the chairperson of the group, says they started making the baskets after undergoing rigorous training by experts.

“When we come for meetings, we first finish our table banking activities then embark on weaving. We are already making sales in the local market and our target is to achieve the quality required in the international market soon. We also want to set up a shop in Meru town where we can display our work,” Ms Mwari says. 

A big basket with many patterns can use up to eight yarns with each yarn going for Sh100, taking up to three weeks to complete. Locally, a well-designed crocheted basket retails for more than Sh2,500.

In neighbouring Tharaka Nithi, Zipporah Kabea from Gacereni village has been weaving since she was a little girl, a skill that was handed down to her from her grandparents.

“I used to make small baskets and as my skills advanced, I made big ones for storing millet. Every girl in my neighbourhood knew how to make baskets,” Ms Kabea says.

Until 2001, Ms Kabea never saw any business opportunity in basket weaving until she was told of a tourist who needed handmade baskets in Marimanti.

Together with her neighbours, she weaved 24 baskets and waited eagerly for the buyer. He never showed up. “We stashed the baskets away because we had no idea how and to whom to sell.

In 2008, a relative who lives in Nairobi told me of a basket buyer. Excited, I informed neighbours and collected 160 baskets which we carted to Nairobi. Again, we could not sell because the buyers wanted a specific design,” she recounts.

But in 2020, several years after Ms Kabea had lost hope in making money from the baskets, an opportunity came up in the export market! Ms Kabea is now in a group of more than 100 women under Tharaka Green Gold Community Based Organisation (CBO), who have specialised in crocheting for the export market.

“Since last year, I have made 57 baskets. Last month, I earned Sh16,000, which I used to pay school fees for my two children who are in secondary school. Basket making is good business,” she says with a smile.

Tharaka Green Gold CBO coordinator Catherine Kareaekwa, the brains behind the enterprise, says the women used to weave baskets using raffia grass and sold each at Sh20.

“I first discovered there was a market for baskets at the Coast and started buying a basket at Sh50 for sale in Malindi. When I left the coast, there were challenges with logistics.

European market

“A decline in tourism also hurt the market, forcing us to diversify into honey processing. In 2019, a buyer introduced us to the European market,” Ms Kareaekwa says.

The group now churns out more than 200 baskets made by hand crocheting every month – where each of the 120 members make three to five baskets every two months.

Tharaka Green Gold trains women on how to advance their design skills to make attractive baskets at the same time taking advantage of the economies of scale to sustain demand. Ms Kareaekwa says they now export the specially designed baskets to the UK after entering a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dada Duka, an online art gallery founded by Ms Chloe Bartron.

Under the arrangement, Dada Duka covers the shipping and customs costs since the group is yet to learn the ropes of exporting.

“Every woman must have a tape measure when crocheting because we pay Sh100 per inch of the basket height. At the end of the day, every woman wakes a profit of at least Sh500 per basket sold to Dada Duka,” Ms Kareaekwa explains. Ms Kabea’s beautiful baskets are now attracting buyers in France, New Zealand and Kuwait.

Mr Eric Mutwiri, an economist who is promoting handicraft cottages in North Imenti, says it is possible to establish an arts based industry through aggregation. He says by working as a group, locals can produce a variety of items enough to sustain the demand in the local and international markets.

Under the Kenya Integrated National Export Development and Promotion Strategy, Kenya is targeting at least five per cent of these markets, translating into more than Sh1.9 trillion annually.

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