Our handworkshops

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." 

Solid Crafts is a social enterprise making unique handmade products that bring joy to customers while empowering women in disadvantaged rural communities in Peru and Kenya. That's the essence of our social impact — because we know that supporting our artisans means uplifting the communities they live in, too.

A knitting workshop in Ayacucho, Peru

In the Peruvian Andes, our knitting workshop Manta has become a well-known name in Ayacucho — a city where the majority of the population comes from Indigenous Quechua communities, still speaking Quechua as their mother tongue. These communities are disproportionately hit by poverty: the World Bank's 2023 poverty assessment found poverty among Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Peruvians running 7–8 points higher than among white and mestizo populations. Over 80% of our artisans, most with a Quechua rural background, never finished primary school.

Most of our knitters live in the poor neighbourhoods surrounding Ayacucho; the workshop also collaborates with a handful of more remote rural communities with a long tradition in handicraft. Knitting is a skill most of our artisans first learned from their mother or grandmother — but we back that inherited skill with ongoing training, so every knitter at Manta grows into a world-class hand knitter.

15+

years of business

200+

women find employment here

22

team members

More than a job

  • Work at our workshop comes with social support woven directly into daily life: 

    • Health — safe working conditions, regular keep-fit sessions, and annual health campaigns.
    • Wellbeing — individual coaching and group sessions on personal wellbeing and social skills.

    • Prevention of violence — because sexual and family violence are still very present in these communities, women are supported in recognising and asserting their rights.
    • Childcare — 78% of our knitters are mothers, 24% single mothers. On-site childcare gives their children a safe, stimulating environment, and gives mothers peace of mind.

    • Education — in partnership with a local adult education programme, knitters who never finished primary school get the chance to resume their studies. Artisans also get access to external skill training to further specialise at an expert level.

  • Handmade, not machine-made

    Everything in our Peru workshop is made by hand — either on hand-operated domestic knitting machines (gauge 6 and gauge 3) or by hand-knitting outright. No heavy machinery, just skill, patience, and care in every garment.

  • Quality materials 

    We work with Peru's best yarn providers to source alpaca, cotton, tencel, silk, and highland sheep wool blends — and help clients choose the right material for what they're making.

Hadithi Crafts in Kenya

Empowering women, protecting nature

Hadithi Crafts, our partner in Kenya, is based in the Kasigau region, in the country's south-east, nestled between Tsavo East and West National Parks. Here, climate change has made farming — traditionally the region's main source of income — increasingly unreliable, as recurring droughts strip families of their harvest. For many of the women we work with, basket weaving has become the difference between a family going without and a family getting by — an alternative to farming when crops fail, and, in some cases, an alternative to poaching or deforestation as a means of survival.

Hadithi means "a story" in Swahili, the local language — and each basket really does tell one: the story of the woman whose hands wove it, and the family it supports.

Beyond weaving, Hadithi also runs two training programmes for young people in welding and leather tanning, setting up equipped workshops in remote villages and connecting them to a market for their products.

Many of the weaving groups are organised as self-help groups, where women save collectively so members can take out loans — to start a business, or invest in their children's education. Woman to woman, they're teaching each other everything from weaving technique to entrepreneurship.

15+

years of business

200+

women find employment here

22

team members

More than a job

    • Health — training on safe working conditions, especially around the use of dyes, as well as sexual and reproductive health.
    • Training — on quality, design, and colouring, alongside a full grounding in Hadithi's fair trade policies and leadership skills, so every artisan understands and can act on the standards behind her own work.

    • Savings — business-skills workshops, including agricultural topics like kitchen gardening, alongside financial literacy training, to help women diversify income and manage budgets and debt with more confidence.

  • Why it matters beyond income

    • Environmental conservation — by offering a sustainable income alternative, Hadithi helps protect the fragile Kasigau ecosystem from pressures like poaching and deforestation for charcoal, timber, or farmland.
    • Cultural preservation — every product sold carries forward the story and heritage of the woman who made it.