empowerment

 

Sustainable and income generating projects are essential to the upliftment of individuals and communities.  Part of our work involves providing skills, start up materials, exposure and areas to operate. Many of these skills are developed during training in other projects, for example:

  • Sewing skills from the Girl's Dignity project have now expanded into making goods for sale such as aprons, clothing and homewares
  • Agricultural Assistance projects have led to much higher crop and produce yields, allowing for sales of fresh and dried vegetables and raw honey
  • The new Batoka Creatives project is already producing beautiful beadwork and the product range will expand as the skills base does
  • Batoka Creatives embroidery and sewing groups are producing beautiful homewares, toys and gifting

Zimbabwe is flooded with talented artists and craftspeople, but all too often opportunities are missed for their skill and creativity to earn them a living due to lack of exposure.  At Jafuta we encourage community-based handcraft and artworks production and have mentored the Ruoko Artists who work and sell their creations at Elephant’s Walk Shopping & Artist Village.   

 

 

 THE RUOKO PROJECT

 

The Ruoko Project is a community based incentive set up by Elephant's Walk Artist and Shopping Village management, Jafuta Foundation and The Ndau Collection. Ruoko means hand in the local Shona language with the name chosen as a group as all of the items created are by the skilled hands of the artists.

The core concept of the project is to identify talented local artists and crafters and give them the chance to work with studio grade materials in the Ndau Collection studio and surrounds to enhance their natural skills. Elephants Walk offers a space to each artist to exhibit and sell their work, treating each artist as a businessman to encourage self sufficiency. The artists freely contribute time to work on projects under the Jafuta umbrella where an artist's eye and hand are needed and we thank them for their continuous support.

 

The following talented people are Ruoko Artists and Friends:

Obert Monga - Mosaic artist and handmade jewellery

Leamington Muzhingi - Pencil sketch artist and painter

Moses Kalembela – Scrimshaw artist, pen and ink artist, micro carver

Godwill Ruona - taxidermist, sculptor and spray painter

Ronnie Mbambo - beader and fabric artist, recycled product sculptor

TNT Zhikali - fabric artist and recycled product sculptor

 

These are not formally trained artists but each strives to be the best in their field and to gain international recognition against the odds. Jafuta Foundation, Elephant's Walk and Ndau Collection firmly support these visions. We hope you're as impressed as we are with the sheer raw talent of these selected artists and love their pieces as much as we do.

 

 

 BATOKA COMMUNITY CENTRE & BATOKA CREATIVES AT THE KATHY COLE CREATIVES STUDIO

 

The Batoka Creatives group is our newest project in progress. Thanks to generous funding from wonderful donors we have completed our Centres of Hope and they are fully operational at the Creative Centre, producing beautiful beadwork, sewing, embroidery and feltwork for our shops. Soon to launch is our new range of snare wire jewellery, Mopane.

 

The beautiful designs originating from the skill training are retailed through our concept store, The Creative Studio. To find out more about this, please click through or select the Retail page on the main menu. . Pay a visit to the store to interact with the artisans and support the growth of these exciting new projects.

 

 

VILLAGE TOURS 

 

Local rural villager, Lovemore Ncube has been an enthusiastic partner in trying out the new innovations installed by Jafuta Foundation. His homestead has become a real life working example of how our projects actually impact people on the ground. In this way, he sets an example for other villagers when it comes to acceptance of new practices. He is proud to open his homestead at Ntabayengwe Village to interested visitors for a set fee.