#Artisan village eqgypt how to#

The new approach introduced a new line of business. He sent them broadcast messages on WhatsApp promoting his products and, for the first time, offered to create commissioned pieces. He reached out to the wide array of connections among loyal customers and galleries that he has developed for nearly two decades. “We are recovering from 2020 and we now can participate in bazaars to sell our products and encourage people to visit Tunis.”ĪbdelKadr took a different route: “An innovative, traditional, safe one,” he said, smiling. Until then, she will continue to sell on Jumia and export her products through an Instagram online store called Malaika. After that positive experience, she plans to launch her own online shop in 2022. The Jumia-based sales helped keep her business running. Omar was one of the artisans who participated. “In March of 2020, we contacted the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Jumia for a collaboration to create an online store on Jumia to sell some of the artisans’ products and help them reach a wider potential buyer base,” Hosni said.

#Artisan village eqgypt how to#

One leading bank, ALEXBANK, helped mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic by advising artisans on how to sell their products online.īefore my trip to Tunis, Laila Hosni, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at ALEXBANK, told me how they wanted to act fast after the pandemic hit to assist Egypt’s crafts sector. Three months into the pandemic, Egypt’s handicraft industry suffered a 70 percent loss in sales, dealing a significant blow to the creative economy. Randa Omar is the first female potter in her family. “I struggled the first months of the pandemic. “They would come to our village during the weekends and buy a lot of things and never bargained. Another local artisan, Randa Omar, the first female potter in her family, told me that prior to the pandemic the biggest source of business was from foreign tourists as well as expatriates. My husband and I noticed that we were among just a few tourists in Tunis, an observation that seemed to confirm my fears. But the experience was intimate, one that made me very happy that I had traveled to the village.

AbdelKadr suggested that I try making pottery, and so I sat next to the wheel, followed his instructions to get my hands dirty and … made a mess. “It takes me at least a week to produce anything you see here-it is a long and thorough process, but the outcome is always worth it,” he said. “Even if I wanted to replicate a piece I would fail, as each one of them has a piece of my soul in it.” He and six family members had been creating pottery since he was a teen-ager. “Each piece is unique,” AbdelKadr told me as he showed us around his workshop. We were soon drawn into a pottery shop owned by Ashraf AbdelKadr. Colorful murals covered the village walls, and pottery stores and workshops displayed their beautiful products.

Immediately upon entering the village of Tunis, art surrounded us. I parked my car, we walked into the village, and I started asking questions.Ī pottery shop in Tunis. But two hours into the trip, I received a speeding ticket–perhaps I was too anxious to get there.Īt the entrance to Tunis, a welcome sign flanked by locally-made clay tablets greeted us. On our way from Cairo, we passed the Qarun Touristic Lake, flanked by kilometers of farms, and I could feel myself relaxing and unwinding from fast-paced city life. I had to find out-so my new husband and I traveled to Tunis in early November. With the numbers of international tourists dropping dramatically, how had these craftspeople and their businesses weathered the pandemic?

Many months later, though-after the wedding festivities were over-I started wondering about Tunis and its artisans. Then I remembered the exquisite pottery produced in the small village of Tunis, a nearly three-hour drive southwest of Cairo. I placed orders for salt lamps from Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert-these are supposed to improve your mood-and for a handwoven tableau depicting the 2011 Egyptian revolution that was made in Asyut, in the south of Egypt. Once I discovered that some artisans sold their products online through websites like Jumia or on their personal Instagram accounts, I got to work. And at the top of my list was locally-produced crafts-because I thought the least I could do during this public health crisis was to demonstrate some support for local artists. Since the pandemic made shopping more complicated due to supply chain disruptions, with the help of my mother I decided to buy local. One of the many Egyptian marriage traditions is that you buy all sorts of things for your new home. Amid various not-so-fun tasks, though, was one that I embraced: shopping. There may have been a more difficult time to get married than during a pandemic, but not in my memory. CAIRO-Last year, I married my high school sweetheart.