Designer encourages handicraft producers to be creative

Maku Gifts owner, Annette Sete has told local handicraft vendors and producers in East New Britain to be creative in using natural materials to produce new products that have not been sold on the market.
She was addressing about 40 vendors and producers during the first training on the PNG Vendors Guide in Kokopo yesterday.
The ENB Tourism Authority has partnered with Maku Gifts which has been in the industry since 2014 to conduct awareness, training and identify groups of people in the handicraft sector.
Sete said the sector in ENB was largely driven by private individuals selling at craft markets and roadsides mainly to tourists visiting on cruise ships.
Sete said there was still a big issue with cargo being sold and the time tourists spent in one location, with the need to vary cargo being sold to tourists and adhering to quarantine issues.
She said from 2014 until recently, they have found out through an awareness that there had been no new items being sold with everybody selling Tolai baskets, small-wheel shell money, carvings, and earrings made by women from West New Britain.
However, she said in September they had seen four new products which she said was really good because people were really thinking more.
“Boys from Matupit have created carvings from lava rocks but it is only four items in the last two years and if the 40 of us come up with two new products that ENB has not seen yet, it will be a bonus,” Sete said.
Sete said there were a couple of success stories from families making and selling art in this sector.
“There are some frustrations that we do not sell our cargo because it is not nice, or because of quarantine issues, no proper markets and sitting on the roadside in dust and rain,” she said.