The Company
Sibanda's Crafts, based on the banks of the Thamalakane River in Maun, Northern Botswana, is a thriving craft manufacturer of unique hand-painted cotton textiles. Sibanda's has, for the last 5 years, been producing items such as tablecloths, table runners, cushion covers, place mats, rugs and wall hangings - all painted using techniques designed around the capabilities of the Sibanda's craftswomen.  We are very much a 'hands on' business where paints are hand mixed, stencils hand cut, rugs and runners hand stitched.

Maun is a town dependant on the tourism industry. However, tourism alone does not employ all who live in this rural area. It is our aim at Sibanda's to generate more employment within the community, empowering women to realise their dreams and improve the quality of their lives and those of their children. We also support other local businesses, buying from other hand crafters of the region and from the smaller shops of Maun.

The Raw Materials
Botswana is a landlocked country; it has no cotton growing areas or fabric paint manufacturers. Our 100% cotton fabrics and paints are therefore trucked 1400 kilometers to Maun. Although the costs are high, we still believe that what we are creating reflects the spirit and ambiance of the environment in which we live and work while lending a helping hand to the surrounding rural community.

The Process
Our fabrics are prepared, dyed and created in our shady workshop on the outskirts of Maun. Our designs are influenced by African abstracts and animals of the varied area in which we live and work. Our techniques are simple: we use a mixture of stenciling, scratching into wet paint, finishing off each article with intricate detail work.

Collection One
These designs are painted onto our heavier cotton cloth. The patterns are unique. Each has a background of swirled paint (which give added texture) onto which simple abstracts are scratched in or animals stenciled on. Finally, the designs are finished with a top detail of fine paint.

Collection Two
Our designs for this collection are created using thinner paints on finer cotton. The fabrics are painted with stencils out in the sun from which we create our tablecloths and a range of cushion covers. The cloths are finished off with fine detail work.

Collection Three
The fabrics for this collection include colour washes and cloth dyed in tea. The designs are complemented with simple embroidery work using ostrich egg shell beads. The beads come from Kuru Development Trust near Maun - a Trust where we are all assured the ostrich eggs have been collected legally. We also incorporate wooden and ceramic buttons into our work. These come from Serowe Wood Carvers and from Okavango Ceramics, both Botswana companies.

More Dreams
Besides our hope to generate more employment within the community, we also dream of working with natural dyes in the future. Botswana baskets are internationally known; we believe that the natural dyes made for the raw materials of Botswana baskets could be adapted to use on our cloths, producing an even more eco-friendly product.

Finally
So what is the essence of Sibanda's Crafts? It is a small cottage industry, where certain techniques of fabric painting are geared around the capabilities of our craftswomen. Here you will not find any fancy machinery, nor specialised skills. But you will find a commitment to fulfilling our people's dreams so that the best quality of fabrics are the end result.

Our hopes are that you love our fabrics as much as we have loved producing them. By buying from us, you will be supporting someone else's dream for an improved quality of life.

Tsamaya Sentle!  (Go well!)