What is the Ruoko Project

The Ruoko Project is a community based incentive set up by Elephant's Walk management together with The Ndau Collection. Ruoko means hand in the local Shona language and we chose the name as a group as all of the items created are by the skilled hands of the artists.

The core concept of the project is to identify talented local artists and crafters and give them the chance to work with studio grade materials and in our studio and surrounds to enhance their natural skills. The Ndau design team also assist in design direction and collaborate to ensure that each piece is able to stand alone in the world market place. With this input, we aim to elevate their work to international standards and to promote them as artisans on an international scale, using the Ndau company platform. To achieve this goal, Ndau, in conjunction with The Elephant’s Walk Shopping and Artist’s Village, has identified the following talented people and given them space to create:

Gift Sithole - Wire worker and jewellery maker

Sipho - Mosaic artist

Leamington Muzhingi - Artist specialising in pencil sketching

Moses Kalembela – Scrimshaw artist

These are untrained artists, striving to be the best in their field and to gain international recognition against the odds. All of us at Elephant's Walk and Ndau firmly support these visions and we're working to make dreams reality. We hope you're as impressed as we are with the sheer raw talent of these selected artists and love their pieces as much as we do.