What's cookin' in Tanzania... and Uganda?: Giant Kitenge BeesWraps for FlipFlopi

Great big Kitenge BeesWraps are being crafted in the workshop! Upendo wa Mama are helping the FlipFlopi Expedition demonstrate that "single use plastic doesn't make sense"!

Check out the website of the FlipFlopi Project which has made a boat out of 100% recycled plastic and old flipflops! They are to set sail on January 28th, travelling the 500km from Limu in Kenya to Zanzibar, while raising awareness along the East African coast about plastic pollution. And during their 2 week journey, the team will be keeping all their food fresh with great big Upendo wa Mama Kitenge Beeswraps! We are looking forward to following their journey and it is exciting to be involved in a small way!

With a few of the big wraps

The past few months have been busy and exciting for the women! It was wonderful to be selling at the Mwanza Charity Craft Fair back in November and then busily re-stocking products to sell at the Iringa Craft Fair in December. I will write more about our time in Iringa in another post, but it was so special to be selling at the Craft Fair on the table next to Mama Lucy (read here...) selling her yummy cinnamon buns and breadsticks!

With Mama Lucy in Iringa

We had so many individual sales in the run-up to Christmas, it was hard keeping up! One hundred gift bags were also sewn for Manji's, a local Mwanza company. The Kitenge BeesWraps are proving really popular in the UK and are available online through BeesAbroad (more headed that way on Monday). The group is now also supplying Standing Voice with cooked peanuts for all the patients at their Albinism clinics which keeps more work coming in. We are grateful to have so many wonderful organizations and individuals supporting us with their business! We are eagerly anticipating the start of renovations on our new Bakery/Shop which will be most exciting (and terrifying).

And finally, next week we are very excited to be connecting with students at Cardiff University who will be working with Upendo wa Mama as part of their Project called "Tipping Point: How to be an Agent of Change." This is based on Malcolm Gladwell's theory that "a curiously small change can have phenomenal effects". The students will be challenged to come up with ideas to help us as a group raise awareness of albinism issues through our marketing and products. I am so interested to see what they come up with and how they encourage social impact through the arts. I am presenting the project to the students via skype on Tuesday … more on this to come soon!