Village Crafts Shop
The Village Crafts Shop sells tailoring and craft and some of the carpentry items produced by the students of the Mshiri Vocational Training School. Its cafe also provides a meeting place for relaxation and refreshment.
The new Village Crafts Shop
Amanda outside craft shop
Shop display of bed & fabrics
In August 2007, Amanda Bennett, a former gap-year volunteer with us, visited to help put finishing touches to the new shop before it opened. The new shop is now much admired and its cafe is attracting many locals.
Inside the new craft shop
Relaxing in the new shop.
Ebony Andrews with her work.
In early 2007 Ebony Andrews, a fine art graduate, volunteered at the School to assist some of the graduate students who have formed a small workgroup with new designs for greeting cards, and to assist with the interior design and display in the new shop.
Ebony designed and made signs to direct customers from the old shop to the new shop, a collection box, in the shape of a chameleon, for customers to donate loose change to the project, display stands of carved tree trunks for greeting cards, and shelving.
New shop and Chagga house (right) during construction
Chagga house under construction
The finished Chagga house
Read more on the Mshiri Vocational Training School.
At Marangu Mtoni, next to the new shop, we have built a traditional thatched hut as used by the Chagga tribe. There are very few of these left and the Chagga traditions are being forgotten. This will not only be a tourist income-generating venture but will serve to educate the local children in the traditions of their forefathers.
If you would like to support our work developing vocational training in rural Tanzania, please visit our How You Can Help or How to Donate page.