Excel Concepts specialises in waste cow bone bead making. It was started in 2005 by 4 young street boys who were trained on project start-up programmes. They have recently moved into a new premises in Kibera slum, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. After lots of hard work and support from a UK-based Fair Trade business called Zuri Design, the group is now self sustainable.

They are now designing, manufacturing the actual beads and assembling intricate jewellery pieces.

The Excel Concepts project involves bringing change to the cow bone jewellery industry in Kibera slum, Nairobi. This craft industry has been around since the late 70’s and employs over 500 people in Nairobi.
These workers are almost always underpaid and work with dangerous machinery and in dirty and unsafe workshops. Most of these workshops are based in the slums, including the workshop this project helped to start.

The work is highly skilled, yet the workers of this industry are often exploited, with middle men taking advantage of the fact many buyers are too scared to visit workshops in the slum. The idea of this project is to set up and run an example workshop so that others locally can see the benefits of adhering to Fair Trade principles.

Below you’ll see products made by Fair Trade artisans and producers at Excel Concepts. Click on the images to discover more about each product.