How It Began

The purpose of our first visit, which spanned the entire month of November, 2007, was fourfold: to help the Krobo artisans broaden their repertoire of beading skills; to acquaint them with Western tools and materials while exploring less expensive, locally available substitutes; to assist them in developing attractive, imaginative beaded products that embodied the richness of Krobo culture while meeting world-market standards of quality and consistency; and to bring back to the U.S. a knowledge of Krobo traditions and techniques that would enrich the field of bead arts on this side of the Atlantic.

To date, I have made three trips to Ghana.(I hope to go back in January of 2012.) It's been a real adventure, and an education in human nature, both Ghanaian and American. Along the way, we lost Megan to the lure of furthering her formal education. Due to trust, legal and ethical issues, Bernard and I eventually disassociated ourselves from our other two original Ghanaian partners as well. But what's left is bedrock. The project is now up and running. We currently have seven young people working for Soul of Somanya making jewelry and other beaded items. We had originally planned that the bead makers I taught on my first trip would produce the jewelry, but we had to shift our plans when it became clear that they were unable to deliver orders of beads, much less finished jewelry, on a time schedule that would allow us to do business successfully in the West. This decision was later affirmed when they mentioned that they had planned on having their under-age children make the jewelry for us. Not on our watch! Much as we would have liked to help, we will not resort to using child labor. The legal working age in Ghana is 18.

When we can, however, we offer market value or better (rather than wholesale prices) for beads produced by the local bead makers. This gives them the opportunity, if they wish to avail themselves of it, to greatly benefit from this project. Unfortunately, to date we have had very limited success with this approach. Of the artisans to whom we have advanced funds for the materials needed to fill our orders, very few have ever returned with the beads we ordered. Of those who did not deliver, none have repaid the money loaned to them. Only a handful of times in our history has a bead maker actually delivered what we ordered in time for us to use the beads to fill our own orders, upon which our survival as an organization depends. Much more often, he or she has returned far too late, bearing, not the beads we ordered, but something altogether different. We haven't given up on the idea--we would very much like to help these talented artisans better their lives, and I know that much of the situation can probably be attributed to cultural differences. But we have to be able to get the beads we need when we need them. And we have yet to come up with plan that works out with these artisans. Maybe on my upcoming visit....

Similarly, we had to shift our plans when we were unable to find a viable market for the bead makers' original jewelry designs, for which we had promised to pay a royalty each time one of them sold. I'm sure that this was due, in part, to my utter lack of marketing experience when we began this project. Bernard and I both have had to learn a great number of skills on the fly, and I would be the last to claim that I had any idea whatsoever what I was doing when we first began. Whatever the case, and despite my own delighted admiration for the beauty and creativity of those original designs, I was unable to find buyers for more than a very few of them. So, in order to keep the project running--i.e. in order to be of use to anyone in the Somanya community--we had to adapt our plans. We knew we had to come up with designs that we would be able to sell here in the U.S., and we knew we had to find a way to be sure that they would be produced on a somewhat predictable timetable. Hence the staff of youth who were willing to work under supervision at our own place of business.