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A SELF SUSTAINING COTTAGE INDUSTRY SURVIVES AMONG THE HARDSHIPS

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• Eco Africa Social Ventures is a New York based non profit that supports collectives of crafting artisans in Zimbabwe (mainly women with families) with food and essentials to help them survive a devastated economy. We also raise funds for day care, scholarships for their children and other necessary social improvements.

  In 2003 we helped groups of unemployed, unskilled women form themselves into crafting collectives as part of a social enterprise initiative to empower them with income-generating crafting skills. Chitungwiza, a high density township near Harare the capital is the location. Handmade paper making and paper crafting is the focus of the training.

  A crafting infrastructure and a sustainable environment now exists. In a country with 95% unemployment women are desperate to find work to support their families and extended families. It is estimated that each employed person is supporting up to ten unemployed loved ones.

  As a result of the training a line of beautiful handmade gift products was born, crafted by women in Zimbabwe and carried over the years by museum stores and fair trade stores across the USA, Europe and Australia.  Included too are customers in the United States such as The Smithsonian, Disney Stores and Kate's Paperie.

   Shortly after the initiative began in 2003, in a move by authorities to re distribute land in Zimbabwe most working farms were confiscated from their owners resulting in the destruction of the food supply. Economic catastrophe followed and income from work became no longer enough to save people from the ravages of poverty, hunger and disease.

  Only recently known as the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe is now one of the poorest nations relying on famine relief to feed it's ever more desperate population.

  For women life is particularly bleak. Many husbands and breadwinners have fled to neighboring countries to find work. HIV/AIDS is out of control and water supplies are contaminated with sewage resulting in frequent outbreaks of cholera. Average life expectancy for women is now a shocking 34 years.

  Eco Africa Social Ventures (EASV), was founded in 2007 as a non profit 501(c)(3) corporation to raise funds for food and other essential quality-of-life upliftment projects for the artists and crafting artisans who are part of the Eco Africa crafting collectives. The women who are trained became the trainers and a nurturing environment exists where the women have become a family and are able to support each other emotionally through the difficult times that have evolved.

  In spite of the often appalling economic conditions that surround them, we support the collectives in order for the women to remain healthy and well nourished, enabling them to continue to earn income from the work they love. Our vision is to eventually, through the expansion of the programs to include more and more artists and crafters, that we will be able to play a significant part in helping to revitalize the amazing crafting culture of Zimbabwe.