Amy and I first met in her flat, in what she called her guest room, which was essentially a little office space she had created for Kigali crafts. The room was stuffed with boxes of packaging material, necklaces, sacks of recycled paper beads and soapstone hippos. There was just one small cleared-up space for her desk. I quickly understood that the business Amy was running was a one-woman show. I admired her for that.
At this first informal meeting we talked about the women in Rwanda she was supporting. About how everything got much bigger than she ever though it would. Amy cried. A bit. But twice. I did as well. After 2 hours of conversation. I had found out everything I needed to know. Kigali crafts was not simply an intermediary, selling cheaply produced jewellery at high prices. Kigali crafts was about people. Real people, whose lives she was trying to improve. This was the only kind of business I could see myself working for.
When Amy and I met again three months later, we did so in a shiny new office space in the York- Hub. It was of course, still full of uncountable boxes of beautiful, colourful, Rwandan, Ugandan and Kenyan produce. Amy gave me a desk and a set of keys and I quickly felt at home.
The fact that I am writing this means that my time here is almost over, which feels a bit unreal at the moment. I will try to give you a small outline of the kind of work I have been doing. There were many small things I took care of, orders to be sent, invoices and cheques to be dealt with. Stella and I also did a stocktake and in order to finish it we needed to clear out the “guest room” Amy and I first met in. Now you can walk in it again.
The main task that I set myself for my internship was making some money for Kigali Crafts. I tried to do this in three ways. Firstly, I organised a charity gig in the basement that will be taking place on the 8th of May (this is a shameless plug and I think that you, yes you, should come). The gig won´t make us a lot of money, but it is a nice and easy way to make some. I´m am very excited about it, not only because my favourite York band, the Birdman Rallies have agreed to play but also because my own band Climbing Trees will get to play with them.
Secondly, in order to stay sustainable in the long term, Kigali Crafts needs to get in touch with retailers. In order to make this happen I wrote a brochure, to be sent to retailers in Germany and Austria. I really hope that we will get some more big customers this way. We need them to survive over the years. Thirdly, I wanted to improve the pictures on or website. Last week I went to London and Ieva, a fried of mine and amazing photographer took pictures of all our items. I can´t wait to see them.
In retrospect, it has been a very eventful couple of weeks.
So, what was the most important thing I learned in the past month? I learned that people are generous. My amazing friends, old and new, helped me carry bags of jewellery to and around London, took photographs, gave me a place to sleep in their house, modelled in the freezing cold, designed posters and bought soapstone hippos off me. This blog post should be nothing but a thank-you to them.
Kigali Crafts 