Bosnian Handcrafts/BH Crafts are engaged in the production of handmade items that they sell around the world, and the purchase of their products directly helps the integration of marginalized groups into society. Each product has its own name and story and it all started 27 years ago when a goal was set in a refugee settlement near Tuzla – sales on Fifth Avenue. Today they are a step up to it. Read the inspiring story told by the founder of this unique organization, Lejla Radoncic.
”In 1994, I came up with the idea to start a project at a time when I was working as a coordinator in exile settlements near Tuzla. In 1995, I met women from Srebrenica at the Tuzla airport and, while living and working with them, I noticed that they had a natural talent for handcrafts. For them, it was simply part of the home education. And since I am an economist by profession, I thought in this way: humanitarian aid will stop at some point, what will these women do then?, ” noted Lejla Radoncic, founder of BH Crafts.
Until the war, most of the women she gathered relied on their husbands when it came to financing her family, and they took care of the house and children.
The project started as part of a psychosocial support project led by the international humanitarian organization Norwegian People’s Aid.
However, even though designed as a humanitarian, the project had a self-financing segment from the first moment and at no time was it one hundred percent dependent on donations and donors.
That money was immediately invested further in the procurement of raw materials and the women started getting money for their work and the circumstances soon influenced the whole project to grow into something more.
”The most important thing for us is that we are socially responsible, that we help the local community, ie women who are on the margins of society who, through work with BH Crafts, are re-involved in social flows. In addition, we have moved away from an exclusively humanitarian story because these are handmade quality products whose control is performed on as many as five levels, ” Radoncic pointed out.
This ensures that each product is identical. The socks they produce, when stacked on top of each other, look identical, as if they were made by one hand and not hundreds of hands all over Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Vlasenica, Kakanj…
Today, 27 years since the beginning, about 180 to 200 women throughout BiH work for BH Crafts. That number sometimes grew to 700, depending on the projects and contracts.
”We are approaching Fifth Avenue. We were selling at Neiman Marcus, it’s just a step lower. I couldn’t imagine it. I did have a vision, but not to this extent. It took a lot of work, a lot of courage. Every investment was a risk, but together we have achieved these results. You cannot succeed if you do not havegood people in all positions, ” Radoncic concluded.
E.Dz.
Source: Biznis Info
