Artistan Support

Expanding Opportunities assists marginalized artisans in Kenya to increase their market by purchasing their work and selling it through three web sites, Aina Moja, www.ainamoja.com ; 1st African Clothing www.1stafricanclothing.com, or African Crafts and Art www.africancraftsandart.com.

Meet some of our artists

TEMAK is an amazing project in Kisumu, Kenya. Founded by an African woman who was determined to make a difference for teen mothers, TEMAK has grown and developed. Teen moms can benefit in many ways. One of their projects is teaching the girls a skill. They are taught to sew and create dolls, children's clothing and many other stitched creations. They make bookmarks, paper beads for necklaces, and many other items for sale to support themselves and the project. Expanding Opportunities, among other buyers, purchases items made by the teens and resells them. This helps increase their sales and support the work of TEMAK.	Out of the city center in Nakuru are the rented workshops of many artisans. In these workshops we met our drum makers. They take the raw hides and soften them to scrape the hide. When the hide is fully scraped, it is cut to the proper size for the metal form cut from discarded tins. Some of the hide is cut into strips for the lacing of the drum. Then the hides are wrapped around the form, holes made to accept the rawhide lacing. The drum is tightly laced and set to dry. When fully dry and shrunk to the form it is dusted with a bit of pyrethrum to destroy any insect eggs. The completed drums are hung on the wall until sold.
Martin is new to us in 2005. We met him through a missionary of the Roman Catholic church. She works with handicapped children and their parents. Though it is very hard for Martin to walk or have full use of his extremities, he knits sweaters with 100% wool. We encouraged him to continue and also to branch out to create other wool products.	Jackson Nyamai has been with us for several years. He is an excellent wood carver. He creates everything from simple wooden animals to custom full size pieces.
Nyanikai is one of the members of the Naropil Women's group. Expanding Opportunities has been purchasing beadwork from this group for several years. A peace corps worker assisted the group to build a workshop to be able to have a single location to congregate and sell their work.	Expanding Opportunities has been working with Niasharua for several years. She is a talented Maasai beader. Working primarily alone, she produces quality beadwork to help support her children's education.