The African Conservation Fund

About Sanaa Africa: Art for Conservation

In September 2006 we met with eight women's groups in Maasai communities in Kenya and Tanzania's Rift Valley, including the Enkongu Engare Women's Group shown at left (located near Amboseli National Park). These meetings culminated in a plan to assist these ladies' groups and their communities by purchasing their beadwork to market in the West, as well as to assist them in building their businesses, products, and marketability.

Diversify to Save Diversity

A hallmark of a healthy ecosystem is diversity and resilience, which help sustain life  through adversities such as drought, fire, and disease. Likewise, healthy human communities will have diverse income sources so that their well-being is not tied to one volatile income source such as agriculture, livestock, tourism, or international aid.

While our partner, African Conservation Centre, has been successful in turning wildlife into assets in key areas in the south Rift Valley, with over a dozen communities involved in creating private game reserves and income-generating ecotourism ventures and jobs in game protection and management, we need to continue to introduce diverse economic opportunities in order to enhance the communities’ resilience to these threats and unstable economic factors.

Innovative Approach: Leveraging for the Future

Beadwork has long been a special craft to the Maasai people. Women make and wear elaborate beaded ensembles for themselves and for their sons, lovers, and husbands. Beadwork colors and styles are specific to regional groups, identifying them to each other; communities are very proud of the art and skill of their beaders. In East Africa, Maasai Women's Groups have been forming to take advantage of these skills to augment their income, particularly since the Maasai must increasingly join the modern cash economy. School fees, supplemental food, and healthcare are just a few of the things for which money is needed.

Sanaa Africa: Art for Conservation aims to provide income for communities in two ways:

1.    Immediate, dependable income from sales of traditional and non-traditional art and bushcraft, or sanaa (beadwork, leatherwork, basketry, woodworking, etcetera); and

2.    A fund (Faida ya Sanaa – Profit from Art) from the net retail proceeds for small grants and micro-loans to support conservation projects and more economic endeavors.

In this two-step approach, we enhance local economic independence without charity, and leverage community-generated funds to support further economic and conservation opportunities.

The eBay auctions and store items (special thanks to eBay's GivingWorks, which offers free listings for charities) represent just the beginning of our program.

Meet the Ladies

Our program is just starting out; we have met with eight groups - six in Kenya and two in northern Tanzania. Of those, two were ready to start producing products for us right away, and the rest will be adopted into the program over time - meanwhile, through a Ford Foundation grant, a partnership with the Indigo Foundation UK, and private donations, all the groups will receive training in:

• Product development
• Quality control
• Marketing
• Basic business practices

The two groups who are presently creating beadwork for this program are the Enkongu Engare Women's Group, located north of Amboseli National Park, and the Siana Women's Conservation Group, adjacent to the Masai Mara Reserve. These groups are very organized, with from 25 to 80 members, and elected officers to represent them.

Click on their names above to download one-page PDFs that give a brief outline of each group's goals.