In a Nigerian hotbed of terrorist activity, entrepreneur Kola Masha founded Babban Gona to bring jobs and stability to his home country.
The north of Nigeria is the hotbed of terrorist activities owing to the operation of Boko Haram and other bandits. Also, the Niger Delta area is another hotbed for homegrown insurgents. There are various reports about how economic factors drive disaffected people into radical groups….For Masha, the only way to make Nigeria secure again is to cut off the oxygen to radical groups: no jobs, no wages, and inability to feed one’s family.
To learn more about Babban Gona, about its impact in the region or if you want to help, please stop by their website.
I will forever be grateful that I was introduced to the utility and beauty of hand crafted products early in life - from the symbolic motifs sewn into the coarse linen fabric of Croatian traditional wear to the colorful Kilim carpets that decorated the parquet floors in my grandmother's living room.
I treasure the memories of my grandfather teaching me how to protect myself against the "evil eye," the smell of the flower stalls in the open air market where my grandmother bought produce early every morning for the day’s meals and the summers spent at my great grandmother's where the village wags would come to gossip over thick, black Turkish coffee in her cool stone kitchen.
Someone noted that "For all of us that want to move forward, there are a very few that want to keep the old methods of production, traditions and crafts alive." I am a fellow traveler with those who value the old traditions and folk wisdom. I believe the knowledge they possess can contribute significantly to our efforts to build a more sustainable world - one that values the individual over the corporation, conservation over growth and happiness over wealth.
The Noah Project 