Home sweet home-or so we thought !

We had a humble home for our ceramic bead project, but it was ours; or so we thought ! However one man's greed equals 7 marginalized women out of work and the end of our project! At least for now.
The weird thing is, that I'm more upset and stressed out than the women who will now be going without. They actually were comforting me on the last day of work as I stood crying my eyes out.
" Don't worry Meme, God will take care of us. He will find us a new place to make the beads".

Meet some of the bead artisans

New Work

Okawa Beads

We have named our beads Okawa. This means small treasure, or small and lovely in Oshiwambo, the language of the Ovambo people. The Ovambo make up our largest people group here in Namibia.

Okawa Bead artisans

Here area few of the bead artisans.

Our beads are hand rolled, or pressed into molds, then fired once. After the 1st firing, the beads are hand painted, glazed, and fired again at a higher temperature.

The process may sound simple, but it's actually very labor intensive, and the learning curve to get the firing right is a steep one. None of the beads can touch in the final firing, or they will stick together. Also the wires one puts them on, tend to sag in the high fireing heat so it is always a guess how close to place the wires.

New Venture

We have recently added ceramic bead making to our project in Namibia. Getting our beads imported is aways a problem here, and we hope this new venture will provide more jobs as well as lessen our imports. As our project purpose, is to to help the unemployed, we have always used Fair Trade principles. Now, we are starting to wade through the paper work to begin the long process of certification.

Work Of Our Hands jewlery

Here is our work in a new shop in Swakupmund Namibia.