One of the most commercially successful artists in Kenya, Nani Croze, has lived a life few could dare to <g class="gr_ gr_3 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="3" data-gr-id="3">imagine,</g> and introduced a new expression supported by her art, philanthropy and entrepreneurship.



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The journey to the Kitengela Glass estate begins like any other from Nairobi. Traffic is often heavy and there is frustration on the roads. But as you pass through the last of it, a different world unfurls. The road is murram (gravelly) and a new settlement is unfolding around it, overlooked by a new railroad track for the high-speed train to Mombasa, recent signs of development consuming the old Maasai plains.



But no less than a mile away, cushioned by the narrow gorges
of the Nairobi National Park, is the entry into a wonderland where the life and
work of German-born artist Nani Croze has concentrated for over the last 40
years. It is an eccentric paradise with a lush covering of indigenous trees and
shrubs, canopies over stunning and colorfully outrageous architecture that
announce the artist in her territory.



However, her life in Kenya was a gift of fate. Croze first
came to East Africa with her first husband, the animal behaviourist, Harvey
Croze, and their children at the end of the 1960s. 



“I came to Africa in 1968 to study elephants in the
Serengeti and four years later, the study was finished and we decided to go
back across the continent back to Europe. I filled a VW van with my three kids,
safely in the back, and we got as far as the Kenyan border. The car broke down
and we stayed&#8230;and that was that,” she tells me in the aviary area outside her
house as birdsong echoes around generous foliage.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="962" height="555" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38656" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31.png 962w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31-300x173.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31-600x346.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani31-768x443.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 962px) 100vw, 962px" /><figcaption>Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



Mother Nani, or ‘Mama’ to the community of artisans and
their families that also call Kitengela Glass home, is a matriarch in this
setting. Her hair is pinned up in a loose bun revealing tanned cheeks and
piercing blue eyes. 



A formidable painter and muralist, Croze is an artist of
many mediums. However, a little-known fact is her life in science. As a young
woman, she convinced the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and founding father of
the science of animal behavior, Konrad Lorenz, to work under him. Her earlier
works depict this scientific knowledge in lively wildlife motifs.



Nonetheless, she is perhaps most known, these days, for her
work with glass. Her estate is testament to this; colored glass panels of all
shapes and sizes line the structures at the entry of her world. The winding
walkway is flanked by sculptures accented with thick glass. The outdoor seating
is dalle-de-verre. 



The workshop and furnace are open for passersby to see. Its
products, ever-present at every corner of the estate, also decorate the
balustrades of the estate’s gallery, roof to her personal studio, intentionally
constructed around a formidable mogumo (African fig) tree, a souvenir from the
early days. She found it growing on the barren plains of what would become
estate when she arrived in 1979, a genus local legend claims can never die.



By this then, a single mother of three, Croze stumbled in to
the glass arts out of economic necessity.&nbsp;
She had purchased the land from the Maasai community of the area and
was, at the time, a working muralist. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="618" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38657" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11.png 922w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11-300x201.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11-600x402.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nani11-768x515.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption> Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure>



“My architect [told me] ‘you can’t pay school fees with
murals, you better start something new, what about stained glass?’” she
recalls.



An influx of Christian missions meant that stained glass
windows were crucial for finishing new churches and, as an art, they were more
profitable. This has since expanded to a wide-range of recycled glass products
from blown glass to beads, mosaics, murals, sculpture and, of course, dalle de
verre. However, the stained glass studio, the first on the estate, still
remains, busy and peopled, tucked away in a quiet corner of the gallery
building.



Croze, perhaps one of the most commercially successful
artists in Kenya, is often credited for introducing this new craft to the
region. She herself is self-taught and along with her son, Anslem, trained by
glass-blowers in the South of France and Holland, built the first furnace in
East Africa. He eventually took over the glass-blowing side of the business and
now runs his own studio next door along with an eponymous retail brand in
Nairobi selling decorative glass vessels, furniture and lighting. 



In her own right, Nani is responsible for training the first
Kenyan glass artisans, initially in stained glass and then in glass-blowing and
mosaics.



“We started together, my first [assistant] was a man called
Omondi. We started on stained glass-making and how it works and it’s quite a
process but once you’re in it, like all my guys here&#8230; you get quite good at
it. It’s a traditional and weary process but once you have [the finished
window] you have something beautiful that can never be undone,” she says.



Of the things that cannot be undone is Croze’s legacy not
only within the community of the estate and the industry she has created around
it but in the lives of many in East Africa.



Kitengela Glass is home to more than 50 artisans and their
families, many of whom have gone on to build independent careers in and outside
of glass art. An example is Edith Nyambura, formerly the resident mosaic
artist, who began her career at Kitengela and eventually wrote a book about her
work in 2010. 



There is also the young Patrick Kibe, colloquially known as
‘Mr. Dudu’ (Mr. Insect in Kiswahili), who arrived as a student at the estate
almost a decade ago and is now carving his own niche, creating figures and
sculptures of indigenous flora and fauna from recycled materials.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="810" height="537" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38658" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4.png 810w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani4-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 810px) 100vw, 810px" /><figcaption> Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure>



Then there is the school Croze founded, not far from the
estate, often billed as the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. Her
motivation was to introduce to the country the creative education she had
received as a young girl in Germany, which she regretted that her own children
did not have attending local schools.



“We have such terrible schools in Kenya that are so bad for
children! A child should grow up free, they should have music, art, new
movement and environment,” she laments.



The Rudolf Steiner School started with a class of 10 in
Nairobi’s leafy Karen suburb, popularly known as the setting of Out of Africa,
Karen Blixen’s pre-colonial odyssey. 



“It took its time. We had a very good worldwide sponsorship,
especially from Germany. We’ve had our ups and downs but now we have two in
Karen and the other one in Kitale [in western Kenya].”



In addition to her contributions in education, she is also a
key campaigner for young artists across Kenya. She is the founder of the annual
Kenya Arts Diary, a weekly calendar and catalog of up-and-coming contemporary
artists in the country.



The ninth edition was released in November with an exuberant
exhibition at the Nairobi Museum and since its founding has been produced by a
group of passionate volunteers. Every year, she picks up two artists featured
in the diary and invites them to a residency at the estate. The inspiration for
the project, she says, was her father, the acclaimed German woodcut artist HAP
Grieshaber, who also took a similar interest in his students.



“He would always help his students. Art is very expensive
most people can’t buy it so you either make it yourself or you make sure it
happens. The diary is just a venue to make sure people buy it and see it every
week,” she notes.



Although the next issue of the arts diary will be her last,
Croze remains ever passionate about her adopted home and community and hopes to
continue giving back to it while she is still alive.



“I was the first mzungu [Caucasian] in Maasailand&#8230;we had a
really good relationship and we still have with the Maasai community but my Ma
is still not very good, I must say. I feel very much a part of the community,”
she says.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="463" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21.png" alt="" class="wp-image-38659" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21.png 463w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21-300x399.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Nani21-225x300.png 225w" sizes="(max-width: 463px) 100vw, 463px" /><figcaption> Glass work by artist Nani Croze. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure></div>



Croze is a focal point at the Nairobi National Museum, from
the dalle-de-verre mural that welcomes museum-goers at the main exhibition
hall, to her mosaic path that snakes through the museum gardens to the goliath
metal and glass sculptures that mark the way through the complex. She remains
one of the few living artists in Kenya to have such a permanent and public
showing.



Even away from the whimsical glass oasis that she has built,
echoes of her are littered across Nairobi. Her commissioned murals on major
commercial buildings such as the American Embassy in the city’s diplomatic district.
She was the first to color the walls of the newly-established United Nations
Environmental Programme, UNEP, in 1972. Her art is also at the Times Tower in
the heart of the old city, home to the tax authority. There are also pieces
dotted across the region, a recent commission at a call center in Eldoret, in
western Kenya, and the windows at the Serena Hotel in Kigali.



“I just want to make sure that it all keeps going.&nbsp; There are always problems here and there, all
the time, but I want to keep it going,” she says.



Croze, true to her word, is still going with plans for a
vocational school to train a larger population of recycled glass artisans in
the nearby township of Tuala. Plans are also underway for a devotional school
to replace her personal chapel that was lost in a land dispute and, of course,
more commissions while she is still able to work on them. 

On the future of the world around her, a life’s
work, she is surprisingly indifferent. “I leave it to the Gods,” she ruminate

nani

IN PICTURES | The glass ceiling is what she makes it

Norman Beaulieu has an innovative business approach to community development in Africa, regenerating degraded land and providing solutions to mitigate climate change.

Mesmerising childhood tales from a Mombasa-based aunt and a visit to South Africa’s Alexandra township two decades ago forged a passion for Africa in Norman Beaulieu, who now wants to change the fortunes of impoverished people living in rural communities across the continent.
Boston native Beaulieu is the founder of Village Corps, a community development business which aims to use bio-energy, agriculture and modern technology to help overcome poverty and mitigate climate change in some of the poorest parts of Africa.
<div id="attachment_37700" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37700" class="wp-image-37700 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/20181016_102912-768x1024.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="987" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/20181016_102912-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/20181016_102912-300x400.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/20181016_102912-600x800.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/20181016_102912-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/20181016_102912.jpg 1241w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Norman Beaulieu</div>
Already underway in the Akyem Abuakwa Kingdom in the Eastern Region of Ghana, the project has potential across the continent with South Africa’s Rharhabe Kingdom in the Eastern Cape next in line through continued support from the Department of Trade and Industry.
“My aunt was a nun in Mombasa, Kenya, in the early 1960s and as I grew up, she shared all sorts of fascinating stories, many of them about the challenges communities face,” Beaulieu tells FORBES AFRICA.
“Later, I was at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and my resident advisor was South African. We became close friends and when I visited the country for the first time in 1997, we spent a day in Alexandra and I got to see where he grew up.
“I was struck by how my childhood stories of poverty became all too vivid before my eyes. Over 30 years after my aunt left Africa, it seemed like little had changed. I was devastated by the entrenched pattern of poverty, in all its many forms. So I became rather fixated on coming up with a solution to break that cycle.”
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2018/11/12/giving-girls-goals-sowetos-soccer-coaching-clinic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Giving Girls Goals; Soweto’s Soccer Coaching Clinic</a>
What Beaulieu witnessed were NGOs tirelessly implementing their individual solutions, such as drilling boreholes or providing mosquito nets, in as many communities as they could reach, all the while constantly trying to raise money.
Beaulieu, who previously founded Aedi Group, a sustainable project development company in the United States, relocated to Cape Town in 2016 with his wife Kristin and two children to implement Village Corps’ innovative business approach to community development.
“The Village Corps business model is in part similar to a property developer who secures both land and then an ‘anchor’ tenant to create, for instance, a shopping center. The anchor tenant pays annual rent as well as a revenue share to the developer,” he says.
“Similarly, Village Corps secures degraded land via long-term lease from poor communities, yet varies from the conventional model in that it develops the ‘anchor’ business itself through integrated bio-energy and agriculture projects, paying annual rent for land as well as an annual revenue share back to the communities to help address varied community-based needs more systemically.”
“This integrated development model uses an organic agro-ecological farming system to regenerate land that cannot be currently used thereby helping thousands of smallholder farmers establish a more stable and diverse income that collectively creates a more resilient local ecosystem.
“Once established, other businesses can co-locate adjacent to the bio-power facility not only as a source of baseload renewable energy, but also as a source of heat generated by making electricity, which can be used in a multitude of industrial processes.”
In Ghana, Village Corps, he says, is regenerating up to 26,000 acres of illegal mining land, called ‘Galamsey’ land, and approximately 100 kilometers of polluted rivers and streams in its first project.
“Illegal miners dug holes looking for gold, which filled with water and created stagnant pools, so the instances of malaria are extremely high,” Beaulieu reveals.
“The ruined lands had also collapsed riverbanks, polluting rivers and streams, which were sources of drinking water, so deaths from diarrhea and septicemia are also very high in this community.
<blockquote>“We regenerate the landscape and soil in part by planting perennial grasses like cow grass and bamboo to help re-establish riverbanks. The nutritious leaves from these grasses are used for animal feed and the remaining stalks are used to make electricity through steam combustion.”</blockquote>
Village Corps chairman, Kofi Appenteng, is also chairman of the Ford Foundation and the CEO of the Africa-America Institute in New York.
“The Village Corps model uses bio-power to create a more stable and diverse source of income for thousands of smallholder farmers all while delivering appropriate financial returns to funders,” Appenteng says.
“An organized network of farmers producing organic raw materials is compelling for other industries to co-locate within an industrial enclave that has renewable power and a source of heat from the power plant to make their products, this creates many more jobs and tax revenues for the government.
“Over the years of vetting so many approaches to development work, the Village Corps model is the best I have seen.”
Emliano Maletta, a Spanish-based agronomist who is an expert in bio-energy, is also excited about the possibilities across the continent and echoes the view of Appenteng.
“I think that Village Corps projects in Ghana may become an outstanding replicable model with great benefits in Africa and worldwide,” Maletta says. “In terms of regenerating degraded and abandoned lands, this new approach enhances resilient agriculture, agroforestry and perennial grasses which increase raw material productivity at the regional level.
“By combining new farming and agro-industries’ sectors, these bio-refinieries can produce and use local renewable energy sources. A synergy with new value chains including animal feed, food and cash crops, bio-fertilizers and many other bio-materials has the potential to replace fossil-based products that are being imported, enhancing a new local bio-economy with amazing social benefits.”
With the model in place that demonstrated a path to appropriate financial returns, Beaulieu attracted private investors and secured a grant from U.S. Trade and Development Agency through the U.S. Power Africa initiative to conduct the required feasibility studies.
In addition to delivering financial returns, the model has to deliver enduring impact dividends as well.
“Village Corps has inextricably linked their solutions to mitigating climate change directly with overcoming poverty,” according to Bill Reed, who is president of the United States-based Regenesis Group, experts at working with communities to implement sustainable development projects.
“The Village Corps platform is the broadest example of how it is possible to achieve multiple value-adding benefits and impact through a single investment effort. It creates renewable energy through the restoration of degraded land into healthy soil, diverse habitat, and natural water sources in a way that will allow much more productive farming, achieve local food security and a significant reduction in sources of disease.”
From childhood stories of the struggles of the poor in Africa to a business model for community development, Beaulieu has come a long way to realizing his vision of ‘overcoming poverty by cooling the planet’.
And as the program rolls out, he will have the firm backing of Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo.
“The Village Corps platform is being developed as a Presidential Special Initiative by President Nana Akufo-Addo as it aligns with the President’s vision of implementing an integrated rural development approach to creating agricultural jobs for youth, women and ex-miners,” Nana Bediatuo Asante, Executive Secretary to the President of Ghana, tells FORBES AFRICA.
“Regenerating the Galamsey lands and waterways into resilient and productive agricultural systems throughout Ghana will benefit communities for generations to come.”
&#8211; By Nick Said

The Impact Investor

In a rundown street in the center of Mombasa, Kenya, a short walk from the port, I sat down in a Chinese restaurant for a meeting with an infamous man of whom I had heard many talk about. Waiting for him to arrive, watching the door, I saw him enter the restaurant, his eyes flitting across the empty room. He beckoned to a table more secluded and out of the view of most patrons.
As I sat down, extending my hand to greet him, he looked me up and down with suspicion. “Who are you?” he asked, seeming very wary of me despite the fact that we had been in email contact for about a month before my arrival in Kenya. I pulled my papers and business cards from my bag, by way of introduction, only for them to be taken from me. He made off, papers in hand, to conduct an inspection and make copies.
“It’s a very sensitive business this, Miss Otto,” he elucidated upon his return, staring at me intently, still clearly unsure of my intentions.
Piracy, the topic that I was there to research, is a complex affair, and now also an industry that costs the global economy between $7 billion and $12 billion a year.
Andrew Mwangura, the man I met that day, is a famed piracy negotiator at the heart of this industry, which has spawned an underground economy generating hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profit every year.
Mwangura has been dealing with piracy for nearly two decades, spending most of his time running the East African Seafarers’ Association. The rest of the time he negotiates ransom deals between pirates and shipping companies for vessels and kidnapped crew.
Mwangura has found a degree of notoriety in this line of work. Indeed, modern-day piracy, particularly the Somali version, has captured the attention of the world through reports that could be straight out of a big-budget movie about growing organized crime plaguing African waters. These are tales of desperate, young, armed men in fishing boats; capturing vessels, kidnapping crews and holding them for months claiming multi-million dollar ransoms.
The 21st century face of piracy is a world away from the adventurous romance of Blackbeard 300 years ago. It is a slick and nasty trade.
Since the turn of the century, piracy has been on the increase and shifting from Southeast Asia to Africa’s north-eastern coast. Maritime piracy is now a well organized and sophisticated industry where young Somali men, armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, carry out attacks on specific targets and collect roughly $240 million in ransom money each year.
According to the latest figures released by the International Maritime Bureau, on January 19, Somali pirates held 151 hostages to ransom; worth roughly up to $90 million. A study released by Oceans Beyond Piracy in 2010 illustrates that the cost of ransom payments only makes up a small portion of the total cost that the global economy incurs.
While these costs are being carried worldwide, countries in the Horn of Africa region are suffering even more, especially Kenya. The Kenya Shippers Council estimates piracy costs the Kenyan economy $400 million every year.
Piracy surcharges, which are now applied as an additional tax to shipping tariffs, have increased the costs of both imports and exports in Kenya. These surcharges are now commonplace, as a result of the rising cost of insurance, owing to the risks they take in pirate-infested waters. Inchcape Shipping Services says piracy surcharges have added around $100 million to the cost of container imports, and roughly $260 million to the costs of dry bulk and liquid cargoes.
Tourism, a cornerstone of the Kenyan economy, has also been suffering. Cruise ship calls, for example, which brought in around $300,000 a year, have declined from 35 in 2008 to none because of the pirate threat.
Despite so much money being at stake, the fight against piracy has been ineffectual. Why? There are a number of reasons: the lack of the political will to galvanize money and people into action. One of the biggest problems has been that piracy, having arisen from the failure of the state in Somalia, has been fought on one front alone—the ocean. In reality, piracy must be tackled in a two-pronged approach—also in the land from which it emanates.
Somalia suffers from acute instability. It is under these conditions that piracy carries relatively low risk and high reward. It is this element that counter-piracy ventures seem to ignore.
“Piracy must stop naturally,” Mwangura would say. “You can’t fight poverty with guns.”
How can Africa fight piracy? Some gung-ho types have argued that international law can be interpreted to allow forces to ‘blow’ pirates out of the water—perhaps using private armies onboard. Other more peaceful methods include: following the flows of pirate funds; attempting to bring stability to Somalia; improving the quality of life in Somalia for those who otherwise may be seduced by piracy; prosecuting pirates and strengthening the laws against them.
As Captain Jack Sparrow, the fictional buccaneer in Hollywood’s Pirates of the Caribbean, said: “The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.”
According to the latest figures released by the International Maritime Bureau (updated on February 29, 2012), Somali pirates are currently holding a total of 12 vessels and 177 hostages to ransom; worth roughly $120 million, assuming that top ransom settlements are attained.
Up until now, the Somali piracy debacle has been overwhelmingly characterized by what the pirates can do and what international forces cannot.
<h3>Pirates Punish With The Pain Of Captivity</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-538" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1.jpg" alt="" width="721" height="540" />
Twelve gunmen wielding AK-47s stormed a South African yacht en route to Richards Bay, on the coast of KwaZulu-Natal, on October 26, 2010. They took hostage Bruno Pelizzari and his girlfriend, Debbie Calitz. The pirates turned the vessel around and set sail for Baraawe in Somalia.
In the 16 months since then, armed groups have bought and sold the couple like a commodity. First Pelizzari and Calitz were sold to Al-Shabaab, a radical Islamist group associated with al-Qaeda. The group then sold the couple to Somali traders.
In the quest for freedom, a complication has arisen—the South African government does not pay ransom demands. Defense Minister Lindiwe Sisulu dispatched the Navy frigate, SS Mendi, to patrol the Mozambican Channel in a bid to curb piracy.
The Gift of the Givers Foundation, the largest African disaster relief organization on the continent, has been in Somalia to negotiate their release. It has managed to bargain down the ransom price from $10 million to under $1 million. The ransom was increased to $1.5 million when negotiators met with the captors on February 27, who alleged that a third party had matched the amount.
Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of the Gift of the Givers Foundation, hopes the hostages will be home in Durban before the end of April.
“We know where they are. The time is now… We are telling them take it, leave it, or keep them forever,” he says.
Vera Hecht, Bruno Pelizzari’s sister, raised money for the ransom through an online and SMS campaign. She said car guards and petrol attendants reached for their cellphones to SMS when they saw a campaign poster on her car. Small businesses have also come up with thousands of rands, along with South African-based Somali communities.
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IN PICTURES | The glass ceiling is what she makes it

The Impact Investor

Pirates of the Indian Ocean