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the Craft Aid Initiative

The Craft Aid Initiative is a Kenyan non-profit organization implementing craft development programs. It offers a wide range of services to craft sector stakeholders and implements innovative, ground-breaking and effective regional programmes that generate sustainable business for craft entrepreneurs. The Initiative was first established in 1998 as an Aid to Artisans(an American-based non-profit organisation operating since 1976) field office.  The Initiative was registered as a result of ATA's 2001 Pan-African Artisans Enterprise Development(PAED) program, which was funded through a USAID Matching Grant award. The overall goal of that program was to strengthen urban craft enterprises' business and marketing capacities to meet global market demands, with marketable products, quality, on-time deliveries, competitive prices and excellent customer service; therby increasing sales, improving livelihoods and creating employment. This successful program, which ran from 2001 and ended in September 2006, spread across Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa. Matching grant funding came from, amongst others, the Ford Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg foundation.

our mission

The Craft Aid Initiative implements programs which enable the growth of commercially viable craft enterprises and invests in the holistic support of crafters and the sector.