Crafting a Global Market
April 18, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Photograph by Clare Brett Smith
A few years ago José Fumo, a talented woodcarver in Mozambique, sold his wares at local markets. Now his items also sit on the shelves at ABC Carpet & Home, an upscale retailer in New York, and were recently featured in Elle Décor, the home-design magazine.
The transformation came about through Aid to Artisans, a Hartford, Conn., nonprofit organization that helps craftspeople sell their wares to a wider audience. The group seeks to maintain local artistic traditions while offering practical assistance with product design and development, business training, and small grants. It also arranges for some artisans to meet importers and other commercial buyers in Europe and the United States.
Since the group started 26 years ago, it has worked with artisans in about 35 countries, including Georgia, Haiti, Honduras, and Macedonia. One of the organization’s goals is to build self-sustaining small businesses that will provide jobs to craftspeople, mostly in poor countries, says Clare Brett Smith, the group’s president. For example, in Peru, Aid to Artisans helped increase the number of jobs relating to crafts projects from 1,700 in 1996 to 11,000 in 2000.
Aid to Artisans accomplishes this goal in part by hiring design consultants to visit different locales and offer advice, such as how to produce a nontoxic glaze for ceramics and how to increase certain items’ appeal. For example, in Hungary, artisans who previously sewed felt dolls that topped wine bottles learned to create felt Christmas stockings, which have been a big hit in the United States, says Ms. Smith.
The U.S. Agency for International Development supplies 60 percent of the group’s $4-million budget, with the rest coming from corporations, individuals, and foundations.
Here, a craftswoman in Margilan, Uzbekistan, prepares to spin silk. The silk will be used to create traditional ikat-patterned fashion accessories such as scarves, which, with the skills the woman learned from Aid to Artisans, will eventually be sold overseas.
