Cape Coast, Ghana

Global Mamas

Global Mamas is a community-driven initiative working to create prosperity for African women through the sale of handcrafted products made with traditional methods.

A group of people in matching blue aprons pose together outdoors on grass.

A smiling artisan stands in a sewing workshop beside a sewing machine, wearing a colorful patterned apron.

Prosperity, as the Mamas define it, means the ability to support their families, educate their children, and do work they love.

Hands guide blue fabric and taut threads across a wooden loom during weaving.

Sustainable Technique

Batik

Batik uses wax to protect selected areas of cloth before dyeing. Removing the wax reveals the pattern, and successive wax-and-dye stages can build additional colors and detail.

A woman works a pedal loom, guiding striped threads across the woven fabric.

Sustainable Technique

Pedal Loom Weaving

Pedal loom weaving uses foot-operated treadles to lift selected warp threads, creating openings through which the weft passes. The weaver coordinates foot and hand movements to build the cloth.

Hands stitch beads onto colorful fabric, adding decorative patterns with needles and thread.

Sustainable Technique

Hand Beading

In most of Africa, men weave; women bead. Working with wire or thread, beads are accumulated and manipulated into jewelry known the world over for its colorful complexity and cultural identity. We offer pieces of beaded jewelry from South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and indigenous groups in Colombia.