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Eswatini Swazi Kitchen | Dedza Potteries
The National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM) is the largest independent, smallholder-owned membership organization in Malawi. It is founded on the principles of collective action and is democratically governed by its members. It provides training, reasonably priced farm inputs and a fair price for their products to its members. Most of its members have some 4 acres, work their land with only a hoe as a tool and have no secondary education.
Originally funded to support and organize smallholder tobacco production, since 1997 NASFAM has diversified production to other cash and food crops. It now has some 110 000 members in a large number of local associations.
Mr Biter Kambayika began farming in 1992. He used to grow maize and groundnuts but he would be very lucky if he got more than K4,000 in a year from the sale of his two crops. Marketing was a major problem, not only to him but to many other smallholder farmers in the area. In 1998, Lilongwe East Smallholder Farmers Association was formed. Hearing that they were promoting cash crop production Mr Kambayika joined immediately. He grew groundnuts, maize, and ginger. He was amazed and overjoyed when for the first time in his life he made K32,000. The Association had helped him market all his crops. Mr Kambayika told us, 'I was so happy with the price I was given for my crops and I was surprised when the buyers told me the prices were competitive for them as well. Now I see that those people I used to sell to were exploiting me and other farmers around here'. A few years on, and Mr Kanbayika has almost finished paying off the loan on a house, he has bought a treadle pump for irrigation, four goats, a bicycle and a radio which he says his children enjoy listening to. He says he is enjoying life.
Eswatini (meaning ‘in Swaziland’) Swazi Kitchen was set up in 1991 by a Catholic priest, Father Larry McDonnell and an Anglican nun Sister Judith Dean O.B.E., to create employment in Swaziland for disadvantaged communities, and to generate income for Manzini Youth Care, a non-government organization caring for children affected by HIV/AIDS.
Eswatini has grown from a small cottage industry to a successful project producing quality products exported to 14 international destinations including Japan, Europe, U.K, America and Australia. Eswatini has recently become a registered member of COFTA, the Cooperation for Fair Trade in Africa. Eswatini Swazi Kitchen is wholly owned by Manzini Youth Care. The board of Management is comprised of local business people who give freely and generously of their time.
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Dedza Pottery was founded in 1987 by Chris Stevens, a potter who went out to Malawi as a volunteer along with his wife Charity. Chris looks after the technical side of running the pottery while Charity tries to keep the operation solvent. It is very much a family business and many of the senior staff have been at the pottery almost since the start. While initially Chris trained the staff there are now in-house training programmes at both potteries.
From an initial workforce of 7 in 1987 they now employ over 270 permanent members. They find and prepare nearly all their raw materials locally, and much of the production is fired in kilns that burn the waste sawdust from the sawmill in Dedza and rice husks at Nkhotakota. Most of the glaze firings are done in highly efficient electric kilns with accurate controllers. All glazes used on their tableware are 100% non-toxic; thus the pots are completely safe for use with, or for storing, any kind of food or drink. They have been tested by the British Ceramic Research Association and meet all international safety standards. In 1997 they began exporting to Oxfam in U.K. As a partner of Oxfam, they follow the conditions of service for staff drawn up under the “Ethical Trading Initiative”.