HANDICRAFTS AND SOAPS

Kenya is abundant in Maasai handicrafts. 

Kenyans use inexpensive materials, such as rubber from car tyres and beads, to create a broad assortment of jewellery and embroidered sandals.

One of the most striking features of these handmade items is how colourful they are.

As one of its projects, the Adélia Foundation took some of these handmade items to Portugal and, with the help of Portuguese volunteers, sold them in arts and crafts fairs. The revenue from those sales was taken back to Kenya. As in the project below, this activity created an interface between Africa and Europe.

SOAPS

The Foundation held an information and awareness-raising event for Portuguese children to learn about the experience and needs of some of the children in Kenya: those the Adélia Foundation seeks to help.

The initiative then prompted the idea that a group of Portuguese children could make and sell handmade soaps and send the money from that sale to buy items to be gifted to the children in Kenya, alongside a few words of friendship recorded on video explaining their donation.

This initiative was a success with the Kenyan children. However, the joy those children felt was no greater than the benefit and joy the Portuguese children drew from accomplishing their task. 

The activity was an act of solidarity by these children of the so-called first world, contributing to their healthy development and to a sense of responsibility over the global world they live in.