Refugee women craft made trendy

Ever since the International Trade Centre found out about Goodie Odhiambo and her work in product development with women groups around Kenya, they went looking for her.
“ITC wanted to link me up with women artisans in the Dadaab Refugee Camp,” says Goodie, who helps many artisans to upgrade their products so they are in line with what she calls “market trends”.
DADAAB WOMEN GROUPS
This is what Goodie has been doing with Dadaab women groups for the past two years, the fruits of which are on display at Village Market’s Lower Food Court from Saturday through to Sunday.
The display by the “Nyota Farsamo Dadaab Collective” is called the “Dadaab Connections: an interior design showcase from Dadaab” and will run all three days from 10am to 7pm.
“What are being showcased are beautiful baskets, mats, cushions, furniture, lampshades and tie dye textiles,” says Goodie, who adds that several of the women have come with their goods from Daadab and will be at Village Market to talk about their work with Nyota Farsamo.
ITC wanted Goodie to assist Dadaab women through a programme called the Refugee Employment Skills Initiative. They needed someone with the same skill set as Goodie.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
A graphic designer by training and women entrepreneur by practice, Goodie had a special appeal to ITC in that she is known for helping women groups develop everywhere from Turkana to Kitui.
She started her business in 2009. In the case of the Dadaab Refugee women, she found that many of them had traditional skills in things like weaving and hand-plaiting mats and baskets as well as in tie-dying fabrics.
But they needed to improve their designs and learn more about market trends and tastes. These were the issues that Goodie was asked to address.
ADD VALUE
But before she could get to work on tackling those topics, she had to work on getting the women organised into groups. She helped them first to form five groups that gave themselves the name Nyota Farsamo Dadaab Collective and chose Fatuma Athar Haji as their chairperson.
One of the things that Goodie does for the women is to add value to their products.




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