Kazuri Beads is located in Karen named after Karen Blixen of ‘’Out of Africa’’ fame, in Nairobi Kenya, Kazuri which means ‘’small and beautiful’’ in Swahili, began in 1975 when the founder Lady Suzan Wood learned that there was a great need of the regular employment for the single mothers in the area, as a tiny workshop experimenting on making handmade beads. Kazuri started with two Kenyan women and soon discovered that there were many other women in the villages around Nairobi, most of whom were single mothers, who were in great need of the regular employment. Driven by the desire to provide such opportunities, Kazuri has grown. Currently they have 340 women skilled in the crafting of the ceramic beads, strung into the beautiful and the artistic jewelry. This is a lovely safari you can take combine with a visit to the Giraffe Centre, it’s a brilliant day out of the city and to add to your visit to Kenya.
Creative women of the world began in 2011. After a lifetime of the accruing business experience and knowledge of the international social goods, the founder decided to combine everything into a revolutionary nonprofit. Combining sustainable business training, art, and entrepreneurship, women become empowered to discover how they can lift themselves out of poverty.
Although it is referred to as the Kazuri Bead factory, it is really an artisan workshop where the beads for the necklaces and the bracelets as well as other pottery are created. Everything created by the artisans for the Kazuri are hand mate and hand-painted based on a preset pattern that each of the workers follow. In addition to creation beautiful jewelry and pottery, Kazuri provides work for mostly single mothers and provides the free medical care for their employees and their immediate family. Buying items from the Kazuri, in a Kenya safari which are sold worldwide, it is really an opportunity to get something beautiful and help the people as well.
It all starts by making the clay which is pressed in to the blocks, then cut into strips that are scored to create smaller squares. The soft earthen clay is then formed by hand into different size beads for the jewelry, a hole is poked through the centre, and then it is kilned to create the hard bead. For the pottery, the clay is formed into bowls, cups, plates and many other forms and then goes to another set of the artisans who began to paint the clay based on the pattern than they are working with. It is up to the individual artist as to whether they would add the base paint, sort, and stack and assemble them or let dry, and paint any details before sending it to the kiln or whether they would bake it after applying the base paint and then adding the details and baking time. Once it is baked with the colour, the beads have the shine that one would expect it to have during the safari to the Kazuri beads.
The jewelry and pottery created by the Kazuri is truly beautiful, where patience is needed to do the detail work by hand that the woman of the factory do, during a Kenya wildlife safari to the shop after taking a tour of the factory you can buy yourself a souvenir like a couple of necklaces and many more.
Kazuri is a home to hand-painted ceramic jewelry, definitely something that you will not find in any other part of the world. The flair has taken Kazuri beads to a different dimension of making the unique range of pottery which reflects the culture and wildlife safari of Kenya. Each piece, like of the beads, is handmade and hand painted in the very rich colours.
The Kazuri beads are carefully made of the very special king of Mount Kenya clay, brought at the Kazuri beads specifically to make the beads, however they are made by whom and how that work benefits so many people is what makes Kazuri such a great tale in the entire Africa.
