Lutindzi Grass Table Runner Handmade by Swazi women who have gained international recognition for plaiting, stitching, and weaving extraordinary products out of “Lutindzi” grass, this table runner is a unique blend of traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design. With its simple pattern and stylishly-combined colours of cream, tan, brown, and deep blue, this item is a lovely centerpiece and a true work of art. The Product Woven Lutindzi Grass: Each handmade item from Gone Rural combines modern design with the age-old traditions of grass plaiting and weaving using sustainable local resources such as banana fibre, clay, sisal string (from the fleshy leaves of the sisal tree), and lutindzi. Lutindzi – the Swazi name for a wiry, local mountain grass (coleochloa setifera) – has been used for centuries to tie down thatching grass on roofs and to rope together the wattle frameworks of traditional beehive huts. Today, Swazi women use it to create stunning plaited and woven handicrafts. To harvest lutindzi, once a year – at a time decreed by Swaziland's King – rural women climb the mountains to collect the grass where it grows in the cracks of rocks. Since each blade grows in a sheath and pulls out easily when harvested, the roots remain undamaged, enabling the grass to quickly regenerate and send out more shoots. Once the lutindzi has been gathered, it is sent to a workshop where it is dyed an array of eleven vibrant colours. By dyeing the grass in boiling water for 40 minutes and then laying it in the sun to dry, the grass achieves a permanent water-resistant colour and shine. This coloured lutindzi is then bundled and taken back to the women in the countryside where they weave it into gorgeous placemats and table runners – right in their homes! Travel the world with each visit to Ten Thousand Villages. Learn how Fair Trade really makes a difference. Our goal is to provide vital, fair income to artisans by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America. Ten Thousand Villages sells product from more than 30 countries, providing work for nearly 60,000 people around the world. Amazingly, the women weave the table runners and placemats using a unique handmade loom – a simple wooden frame standing up like a trestle – and old batteries. The thread is wound around the battery like a bobbin, and when the fibre is threaded into the grooves along the top of the loom's frame, the batteries hang on either side, acting as weights that hold the thread in place. Next, three pieces of very fine lutindzi grass are placed on the loom and the batteries are flicked from one side to the other, the threads working to bind the grass in place. Piece by piece, a length of material is slowly produced that, once long enough, is removed from the loom and trimmed with scissors. The result is a vibrantly-coloured placemat or table runner bearing the mark of each artisan's skill and creativity. The Artisan Group: Gone Rural Gone Rural was established in 1992 as a rural development organization working to empower women in the remote parts of Swaziland. Today, as the largest handcraft business in the country, Gone Rural has a workforce of 770 home-based women skilled in plaiting, stitching, and weaving products made from "Lutindzi" mountain grass, a sustainable local resource. Since 1992, Gone Rural has been exporting its extraordinary crafts – tableware, floor mats, coasters, ceramic and glass bowls, sisal throws and cushions – to over 1000 retail stores in more than 32 countries worldwide. Considering its humble beginnings, these achievements are astounding. Founded by the late Jenny Thorne, Gone Rural began as a roadside shop selling jams, pickles and Teshweshwe clothing (the company's original name). The shop grew and Thorne sold her shares in 1992 in order to work specifically with rural Swazi women. She established Gone Rural as a development company with the mission of empowering rural women, supporting HIV/ AIDS orphans, and alleviating poverty by providing regular incomes through the creation of uniquely-woven products made with sustainable materials. Through ongoing design input, active marketing strategies, committed leadership, integrity and standards of excellence, the rural women are assisted in achieving their highest potential. Of its 700 employees (representing 14 different geographical groups), 80% rely on Gone Rural as their only source of income, 25% are widows, and all support an average of 7-8 dependents, many of whom are children orphaned by AIDS. Needless to say, employment with Gone Rural provides crucial income. Gone Rural has also recently registered a non-profit company, Gone Rural boMake, in order to impact the lives of its employees and their communities in ways not possible as a business. Through donor funding, Gone Rural boMake is initiating projects that will protect and support AIDS orphans, provide food security and clean water to drought-stricken areas, offer training in vegetable "trench" gardening programs, empower women with literacy training, and provide youth with entrepreneurial skills and opportunities. Since Swaziland has the highest HIV infection rate in the world, AIDS education workshops are among the organization's main initiatives. Meet An Artisan: Fikile Buthelezi Fikile Buthelezi: Fikile Buthelezi is a Swazi woman of determination and entrepreneurial energy. Using the money she saved weaving baskets each month with Gone Rural, Fikile purchased a car battery, electric converter and two solar panels to start her own business. With the help of two gumboots, she created her own unit for charging cell phones in one of Swaziland's most rural areas! Since cell phones are the only communication available in an area with no phone lines or electricity, Fikile asks E5.00 per charge, allowing her to earn extra income to support her family. In addition to providing Fikile with steady employment, Gone Rural is also planning to drill boreholes to provide her community with a supply of clean drinking water. To carry out this project, the organization is raising E60,000 ($US 8,570) for drilling and installation. The Country: Swaziland Swaziland is a small, landlocked country, almost completely surrounded by South Africa. Primarily agrarian, roughly 70 percent of the population is involved in subsistence farming. Even in modern urban centres people maintain firm links to rural values and customs. Centuries-old ceremonies are celebrated throughout the year, at which time Swazis will proudly wear traditional dress. Despite a constitution effected in 2005, Swaziland is ruled by a monarch who retains ultimate power. King Mswati III is often criticized for living lavishly in a nation afflicted by the world’s highest HIV/AIDS infection rates and where life expectancy is 32 years. His fleet of luxury cars and numerous mansions are at odds with the nearly 70 percent of Swazis who survive on less than US $1 a day. Swaziland is heavily dependent on South Africa, from which it receives 9/10ths of its imports and to which it sends nearly 60 percent of its exports. Soft drink concentrate, sugar and wood pulp remain important foreign exchange earners. Unfortunately, environmental conditions such as overgrazing and subsequent soil depletion continue to place strain on resources. In 2004-05, more than one-quarter of the population – nearly 250 000 people – needed emergency food aid because of drought. Swaziland’s people are its greatest resource. Social and economic indicators of household welfare, however, converge to confirm inequalities in access to incomes and assets and the existence of significant poverty. Unemployment stands at 40 percent, and as rates in neighbouring countries rise as well, migrant workers are finding it increasingly difficult to find jobs. In the absence of a serious poverty reduction agenda, alternative forms of income generation are vital to many in Swaziland.