During my time in Ireland I’d been impressed by the countries entrepreneurial spirit and in Dublin in particular. In fact, a 2019 study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor reported Ireland ranked fourth across Europe for budding entrepreneurs.

In Ghana, this approach to earning a living is almost customary. In a fundamental way everyone is a hustler in Ghana from small market traders, to tech start ups, to (in our case) vibrant basket weaving and other artisanal communities of the north. Unfortunately, a key issue nascent micro enterprise find challenging is to scale. It’s this knowledge on the ground that gave birth to SAHARA.IE.

Hence, our goal is to support artisans across Africa by providing access to external markets, levelling up their entrepreneurial endeavours by leveraging this site as a platform. In so doing, we aim to provide our customers with handcrafted sustainable products that are truly unique.

At launch, our Bolga Basket range is the first to market. These baskets are typically made by women from farming communities in the northern region of Ghana. Historically, the soil within the region fails to sustain these communities through commercial farming activities alone, hence basket weaving provides additional income for artisans to support their families.