Kenyan Basket Weavers | The Laundry Basket
Doum Palm Basket Weavers - North West Kenya
In Turkana, we work with a group comprising of 300 talented women from 6 local villages. These sturdy and beautiful doum palm baskets have travelled across the shores of the Jade Sea and the deserts of North Western Kenya - along a transparent and ethical supply chain - to your home.These women were mostly taught to weave by their mothers and grandmothers - and they continue to pass on this skillful craft to younger generations today.
Turkana is Kenya’s largest county and known for making up part of the famous ‘Cradle of Mankind’, where some of the earliest evidence of human evolution has been found. This is also a part of Africa infamous for severe drought, which the Turkana have suffered from since the eighties.
In 1992, a Catholic charity initiated a basketry project in Turkana, to help start to integrate this marginalized corner of Kenya with the wider Kenyan economy. Today, 300 women from six local villages weave baskets here as a means of income, mostly taught the craft by their own mothers and grandmothers.
