Zienzele Foundation / Nancy P. Clark

Tribal affiliation: Shona

How to purchase:
Website: https://www.zienzelefoundation.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zienzelefoundation
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zienzelefoundation/
Email: npclark49@gmail.com
Phone number: 18024396196

Bio:

The Zienzele Foundation began as the result of a chance meeting in Zimbabwe of two committed women -- Prisca Nemapare and Nancy Clark.
When Prisca was a professor of nutrition at Ohio University, she started an Earthwatch project researching the nutritional status of women and children in her native Zimbabwe. That project began in 1984 and continued through the 1990s. In 1998 and 1999, Nancy Clark, a nurse from rural Vermont, volunteered with the project. Then, in 2000, Earthwatch discontinued its support due to the dangerous political situation in Zimbabwe. Undaunted, Prisca and Nancy returned and set a new course!
Prisca and Nancy based the mission of Zienzele on what they had seen during their research: an emerging crisis of children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As the virus devastated an entire generation of adults, widows and grandmothers were struggling to adequately care for the orphaned children left in their care. These aging caregivers asked Prisca and Nancy for help, and Prisca and Nancy responded with "OK! Let's think about what we can do together."
The most successful of our women's caregiver cooperative projects involve making traditional Zimbabwean baskets. Basket making is a traditional Shona art form and we encourage the caregivers to play with innovative as well as traditional dyes and design as a creative way to keep the tradition alive. 
The Zienzele Foundation buys baskets directly, providing each cooperative with earnings that the women collectively control (we are particularly excited about the choice of several cooperatives to start micro-lending within their communities!). The baskets are then sold in the United States and abroad and all proceeds return to communities to pay school fees for the orphans cared for by weavers.