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MY VIEW JOY NDUNGUTSE
My sister, Janet Nkubana, and I grew up in a refugee camp in Uganda, in the wake of the horrific genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
As children, our mother taught us traditional Rwandan skill of basket weaving. At the time, we could not know how that mother-to-daughters skill would eventually change many lives and touch people across the world. After high school, my sister and I left Rwanda. When we returned, we saw the trauma and poverty caused by the genocide against the Tutsi and the poverty of many women who deserved to lead a dignified life.
The opportunity in the centuries-old basket-making skill we learned from our mother cultivated connections with the Rwandan women who needed pathways to generate income. We collaborated on contemporary designs, which are still woven using traditional techniques and natural materials. In 2004, we founded Gahaya Links, crafting and selling beautiful traditional handwoven baskets.
We started working with 27 women and grew into an international business powered by 4,000-plus skilled women artisans, who are leading dignified and fulfilled lives while uplifting their own communities. At the same time we were beginning Gahaya Links, four leaders in Santa Fe conceived the International Folk Art Market, with the mission of creating “economic opportunities for and with folk artists worldwide who celebrate and preserve folk art traditions.”
We participated in IFAM in is early years. The first year IFAM hosted 60 artists. This year’s market hosted some 167 artists (including 41 first-timers) from 51 countries, attracting thousands of people who spent $3.6 million, another record-breaking number. This event has impacted more than 1 million lives, creating cascading economic benefits in the artists’ often-struggling communities.
A literal and figurative world away from Rwanda Nella Domenici, was living the unrelenting balancing act of building her career as a business executive in finance and consulting and simultaneously working as a dedicated mother teaching her children by example how to give back to society and to live as global citizens. Nella discovered IFAM not long after its founding. She shared IFAM values to embrace the “dignity and humanity of the handmade” and to support artists as catalytic entrepreneurs for positive social change. These values aligned with Nella’s and were values she wanted her children to learn.
She volunteered as a IFAM board member. As comrades-in-arms with the artists, Nella’s family spent long days helping artists set up, design displays, sell the art and develop and refine their marketing strategies. A decade ago, Janet and I were in our booth selling our “Baskets of Peace and Prosperity.” I was tired, hot and thirsty.
Nella appeared out of nowhere, offering lemonade. From that moment, we embarked on a close friendship and built a bond between our families. The next year, Nella and her husband invited all of us from Gahaya Links to stay in their home. We have been their house guests every year since. Nella’s children have visited us in Rwanda. My niece came to Nella’s daughter’s wedding and brought Gahaya Links’ woven basket Christmas tree ornaments.
Today, Gahaya Links has 40 cooperatives across Rwanda. We have sold our “Baskets of Peace and Prosperity” in Macy’s, Kate Spade, and Anthropologie. We have been fortunate to have support from Martha Stewart and President Bill Clinton, who speaks warmly of our “peace baskets.”
At a level of success beyond what the IFAM founders or I could have imagined, I have returned once again to Nella’s house, my home away from home in New Mexico.
Joy Ndungutse is a traditional weaver and entrepreneur.
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