Need: Retail of fashion, decorative and other items from Africa

Celya

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Tags:

• baskets
• earrings
• handbags
• pottery
• wood carving

Hello,

I am looking for partners from everywhere in the world who are willing to venture in this business idea. A good number of Rwandans and eventually many community members from East Africa are skilled in making a variety of items, either with their hands or with machines, using factory made fabrics or simple material from mother earth: grass, wood, clay, banana leaves, palm leaves, water hyacinths, hand-extracted fibers from sisal, raphia etc

I have visited some communities and individuals and I am looking for partners who are willing to retails these items in their cities. I have made some contacts already to see if a shop online would work, but shipments costs are so high that the only way it can work is to find partners in big cities who would receive big packages and retail in their existing or new shops (physical and/or online).

I am open to advice about a better way of expanding this business. I will have registered this sort of import/export company by the end of May. For the moment I am looking for business partners in the region and overseas.

If you are interested or tempted to hear more about this idea, you can drop me an email at um.cecile@gmail.com or simply post a comment here. I have a few pictures of some of the items and I am collecting many more photos and descriptions of each and every category of item. Stories includes its cultural value, traditional practices associated with it. When the items is a result of the trainings that the community or individuals attended through local or international NGO, more information about the latter will collected and shared as well.

Looking forward to hearing from all of you.

Best regards,
Cecile