Brama Town
Brama Town is a charming village, home to about 1,000 people, located 30km south of Freetown. Led by village chief Samuel Walker Mansaray, the community has embraced basket weaving as a livelihood. Samuel learned the art of basket weaving from his brother-in-law many years ago and has been teaching others ever since. Today, over 30 skilled weavers live in the village and sell their baskets from a stall along the highway.
In 2017, Aurora Foundation was seeking local craftspeople and heard about this stall selling baskets. They met with Chief Samuel and put an initial order for 40 baskets. The expert weavers completed the order in just two days. Thus began the collaboration between the Brama Town weavers and Aurora Foundation. Through the ongoing partnership with Aurora Foundation, the weavers have learned new forms and styles. Today, many youth participate in this weaving production, providing the community with a substantial source of income in addition to their work in small-scale vegetable production and other economic activities.
Lettie Stuart Pottery
The Lettie Stuart Pottery center is a unique place in Sierra Leone and all of West Africa, as it is one of the few places capable of producing high-fired pottery. Located outside Waterloo on the outskirts of Freetown, it was founded in 2008 by the Sierra Leone Adult Education Association (SLADEA) and named after Dr. Lettie Stuart, the founder of SLADEA. It was established as a three-year training program to equip adults and youth without formal education with the skills needed to become employed potters. Among the students who graduated were Braima Koroma, Mohamed A Sesay, and Fatmata Lakoh, and they were expected to run the facility after the training course was completed. However, with little experience running a facility and no substantial training, the center slowly deteriorated, and little funds were gathered to maintain it.
In 2018 Aurora Foundation began working in partnership with the center, starting with some improvements in their infrastructure and equipment. As well, a new 18-month training program was established to recruit and train more potters. Today, the pottery center employs eight people and operates full-time producing pottery items; they also host pottery workshops for visitors. The center continues to offer long-term skill-building training to develop more potters and boost its production.
Pottery production at the center is an exemplar of patience and slow living. The clay is harvested from a nearby riverine area. The potters then process the raw clay into throwing clay using a sequence of machines. At the pottery wheel, the items are molded and trimmed exclusively by hand. The items are then fired in the wood-burning kiln. Through all of these stages, the potters are utilizing their expertise and artistry to create beautiful, sustainable home goods.
Lumley Arts and Crafts Market
The Lumley Arts and Crafts Market is a collection of jewelry, textile, and woodworking artisans. Located near Freetown’s iconic Lumley-Aberdeen beach, the Arts and Crafts Market serves a stream of tourists who purchase items that symbolize their travels to Sierra Leone.
Aurora Foundation began working with some of the artisans from the market in 2018, designing unique jewelry pieces and hair accessories from scrap cotton materials. Since then, Aurora Foundation has continued its partnership with this lively and talented group of artisans to produce various textile products. For many artisans, relying on unpredictable tourism flows, producing Sweet Salone products provides them with a more stable income to support significant livelihood improvements, including buying land, building homes, and financing a university education.
Ibrahim Kallon
Ibrahim Kallon, originally from Freetown, is a textile weaver. At the age of 12, Ibrahim’s grandfather insisted that young Ibrahim join him every day after school and assist him in the practice of weaving. While he did not see the benefits of learning this traditional skill at that age, he could not be more grateful today for his grandfather’s persistence. Unlike many of his peers, he has the means to earn an income.
Today Ibrahim Kallon can be found weaving in a small building adjacent to the Lumley Arts and Crafts Market, but only on his days off from university.
Foday Thoronka
Foday Thoronka will always brighten up your day with a smile. He is a calm, patient, and skillful tailor who has been working with Aurora Foundation since 2017. Foday lives in Murray Town with his wife and children. Each dress sold represents another brick in Foday’s house. While Foday used to live in his one-room workplace with his family, he now managed to build his own house next to his workplace. Step by step, his home is taking shape; next, he plans to develop a dedicated tailoring shop.
Green Giraffe
Mariatu is a textile weaver and a mother of four children, and she is based in Grafton. There she has her weaver loom, and she is a part of a community of women all making Kontri Kloth that they sell in Big Market, Freetown. She is the main weaver for all the Green Giraffe products.
Alusine is a tailor with grand ambitions and is currently also attending University. He has been the leading tailor for the Green Giraffe products, and that is how he has been able to finance his university education.
The Largo Creation Group
The Largo Creations group is a small artisan collective based in the village of Largo Kissinima, a village nearby Bo in the Southern province of Sierra Leone. The artisans in this group use traditional knowledge to dye cotton and raffia using locally-foraged materials. Lucy Parmoi, a village elder, was trained by her parents in these skills. Today, Lucy works with a group of five women in the village to pass along this longstanding local knowledge. The schoolteachers from the village school also help in the dying process, and, as the working area is just beside the school building, they use it as an opportunity for practical lessons for the students to support their curriculum which incorporates some of the traditional crafts of Sierra Leone. James Amara, one of these teachers, was greatly inspired by his own school arts and crafts teacher. He closely studied with this teacher and came to learn many traditional crafts skills of Sierra Leone. James today serves as the head of the collective.
The Largo Creations collective does the natural dying with locally-foraged materials to dye the pure cotton used in our Sweet Salone x Hugdetta pillows and throws.