dee wrote:
guitarboy2828 wrote:
Very interesting.. Pretty cool actually. I wish i could go! ?
Is going to be weird buying guitars from Uganda though. On the headstock "Made in Uganda". Not sure people would appreciate that..
Actually, I can see people buying them exactly for that reason...
+1
This is good development. What you have thoughout Africa is a lot of people who are skilled using their hands in a global economy that needs people with masses of education. So why not use develop those skills to take advantage of a niche market mostly occupied by the handful of people from developed countries that still have these skills? It's not going to provide jobs for all, but it's a useful approach.
Vocational training programmes usually bug me, because they're usually totally out of step with the needs of the economy. But when you're talking about producing fine, hand-made goods (as opposed to say, teaching people how to use a factory sewing machine), you're playing right into the hands (pun intentional) of the strengths of a great many unemployed Africans.
I remember thinking something along these lines when I was reading the site of the guy who scams 419 scammers. He got these guys from Nigeria to send him a perfect,carved replica of a Commodore 64 (it's a bit ethically dubious since the craftsperson was almost certainly not in on the scam, and was probably promised money by the scammer which he'd never see since the scam was already rumbled). And I thought, wow. There are so many dirt poor people on our continent who can happily do stuff that's just too expensive to contemplate in the first world due to the scarcity of hand craft skills.
I think of the great deal tourists are going to get in souvenirs over the world cup. Most places your souvenirs are identical, cheap, machine made crap, mostly not even produced in the relevant country. Here tourists get individual, hand-made, goods demonstrating skill and creativity. Now what if those skills were turned to things beyond just decorative items?
I'd happily buy a custom hand-built guitar from Uganda. Especially if it was a lot cheaper than a similar instrument from a first world luthier.
