On the outskirts of Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, at the foot of the Ngon’g Hills, lays the farm immortalized in Karen Blixen’s ‘Out of Africa’. The title of the book and film comes from the Latin saying that translates as ‘There is always something new out of Africa’. Almost thirty years ago, that saying came true again, with the birth of Kazuri Beads. 

The colorful ceramic beads made at Kazuri on the old Blixen estate are now famous world-wide and are featured in the Gratitude Collection. The Gratitude Collection’s Signature “g” Bead is made exclusively for the collection by workers at Kazuri. 

Lady Susan Wood, an African-born Englishwoman, and her doctor husband were committed to the welfare of the Kenyan people. In the 1970s Susan Wood founded a small project to help and empower women without any other means of support. That enterprise evolved into Kazuri Beads, a Fair Trade project that empowers local people. 

Meaning ‘small and beautiful’ in Swahili, the project that began with two disadvantaged women working in a garden shed now provides employment for several hundred needy people, especially women. It has created a source of income for many women who would otherwise have had few options to provide for themselves and their families, including many women with disabilities, single mothers and women widowed by the Aids epidemic that has swept through Africa. 

Kazuri Beads are made from clay sourced from the foothills of the mountains of the Kenyan Highlands, providing an income for small farmers in the area. The clay is processed in the Kazuri plant to remove impurities. Feldspar and quartz are added and the raw material is further treated to create a high quality clay. 

It is painstaking work. The clay is then hand made into ceramic beads that are first baked in the sun before being fired in electric kilns at temperatures above 1100 degrees Celsius.  The beads are then individually hand-painted and glazed before being baked again. Quality clay, skilled painting and meticulous quality control mean that the beads are uniquely one-of-a-kind, even though power cuts sometimes disrupt the process and ruin whole batches.