Making a statement

Ellah Nyawira needed only Sh500 to start a successful line of jewellery and accessories.

She had always been a nimble- fingered child, finishing her art assignments overnight instead of utilising the entire two weeks they were usually given.

She preferred to make her gifts and cards, and relished the look on her friends’ and family’s faces when someone received one of her personalised gifts.

But although she was good at it, making money out of her art never crossed Ellah’s mind. She had other plans for her life.

“I watched a documentary on the Rwanda genocide which roused in me an interest in conflict resolution,” she says.

“I went to USIU for a degree in development and conflict resolution, after which I was hoping to go out and help ease the peace situation in the world,” she says.

Birth of a business

To pass time during a school break, she bought beads from a shop she had seen on River Road and made herself jewellery pieces.

When classes resumed, friends at the university began asking about them, so she began selling them. She did this for three months, not thinking much of it.

“My wake-up call came when I made a jewellery set as a gift for a friend, and she thought I could do better. I took that as a challenge.”

Doing better meant that she could charge more for her pieces, and she needed the money to raise her daughter, who was a couple of months old at the time.

At the beginning of 2010, she borrowed money from her mother and set to work, pouring her heart into her pieces, which were a mix of African beads and modern styles.

Her clients began asking for more. A couple of months in, she was incorporating beads, semi-precious stones and wire into her designs. “My drive at the time was seeing that I could adequately take care of my daughter,” she says.

Her big break came a year later when Hellen Dausen, Miss Universe Tanzania, competed in the Miss Universe 2010 finals wearing her pieces.

When it rains it pours; this proved to be true for Ellah. Her showing at the Miss Universe competition led to her collaborating with designers from Uganda and Tanzania on various runways including the Africa Fashion Week in London.

Being a young entrepreneur, most people she encountered would have a piece of advice to give her. Slowly, she found herself conforming to this advice. Her pieces went from being statement to being smaller.

“I began losing my touch and even took a break for a few months where I was only making things on order before I realised where the problem was,” she says.

Locking all these voices out, she went back to making her bold pieces, this time creating bone and brass rings. Instead of conforming, she acknowledged the fact that with the time and skill she was putting in, her target market was going to be people with more disposable income.

She also began exploring the business aspect of her trade. She shelved her international relations credentials to concentrate on her passion.

Now, Ellah’s business has grown to include leather travel bags, customised travel wallets and business card holders. She’s had to dig deeper into her pockets for this growth because of the high cost of leather and the fact that it is only sold in bulk.

“The jewellery trade has grown immensely but most of times it is the same products being replicated over and over. I draw daily inspiration from my need to see different things out there,” she says.

From her experience, strangers make the best clients. Friends and acquaintances expect to buy pieces for lesser prices just because they know her.

“If your friend had a supermarket, would you go there expecting to buy flour or sugar for less than the standard price? People should learn to respect artists,” she says. Her dream is to turn JewEllahry into a corporate.