Compliance - The Need for Record Keeping
Jah Works: Talented exponents of the creative skills of our Rastafarian community
Stabroek News
April 20, 2007
Wesley George and Juliana Hughes are adherents of the Rastafari faith and part of a fast-expanding industry of local craft producers who, for all their unquestioned talents, remain on the periphery of a conventional business culture that is yet to acknowledge the viability of the local craft industry.
Jah Works, the business name of the entity which George and Hughes run from their Georgetown home, specializes in the production of decorative chains, wrist bands and a host of other skilfully turned out craft and costume jewelry using the scores of beads and seeds that are part of the local vegetation. Their work reflects the delicate and refined skills of talented hand crafters and the decorative flair and riot of colour that have come to be associated with the Restafari culture.
George and Hughes, however, are yet to break in to the "big time" of the commercial craft industry and their current preoccupation is with creating a stronger demand for their own particular line of products in a market which they say is still underdeveloped, constrained by prejudices and oriented towards conventional jewelry.
Jah Works was one of scores of local craft producers that participated in the recent Guyana Gift and Craft Show held at Sophia recently to coincide with Guyana's hosting of the Super Eight leg of Cricket World Cup. The experience, George says, while failing to realize the commercial success which the industry continually promises, at least served to help promote the local craft industry at a time when the country's staging of an international event afforded it a measure of exposure to the rest of the world.
George and Hughes have clearly done their homework on the local craft market. They have concluded that in the absence of a tourist industry that brings large visitor numbers to Guyana local craft producers are left to fashion their own marketing strategies to create a regional and international demand for their products. "There is no system here in Guyana for marketing our craft to the outside world," Hughes says.
Ras Wesley and Juliana Hughes (sister) McAbee with a selection of their creations
Jah Works is rooted in a concept which George and Hughes say derives from their own adherence to the Rastafari faith. They believe that their enterprise has emerged from their own god-given talent and from the biblical prerogative of "dominion over everything upon the face of the earth." Humans, trees and seeds, they say, have close affinity and it is this philosophy that shapes the orientation of their enterprise.
George and Hughes are aware, however, that the rules of business are shaped by more conventional customs and that the real challenge facing Jah Works is that of fashioning business plans that conform to those more orthodox conventions. Both George and Hughes believe that their limited success as "businessmen" up to this time derives in part from societal prejudices that have stereotyped the Rastafari culture and created barriers to its acceptance in the world of conventional business. In this regard George cites what he says are the prejudices of a commercial banking system that remains wary of "doing business" with Rastafarians given what he says are the broader societal prejudices against Rastafari. He believes that the talent and the industry that inheres in a number of Rastafarians is stifled by conventional perceptions that reject their physical appearance, particularly their flowing locks which, George says, derives from a spiritual directive not contrived by Rastafarians but rooted in the teachings of the bible.
George and Hughes are original members of Congonya, a Rastafarian group that has traveled extensively in Suriname, Brazil and French Guiana, teaching music and learning the ways of indigenous communities in those countries. Their creative skills and business pursuits were honed through their travel experiences and they believe that the accomplishments of the Djukas in Suriname as producers of indigenous craft point the way for the development of the craft industry in Guyana.
While Cricket World Cup provided Jah Works with a limited marketing opportunity mostly through the various retail outlets in Georgetown George says that in the absence of any real bargaining clout his enterprise was unable to engage in negotiations through which their products could fetch what he describes as "fair prices." On the whole he believes that the entire craft industry is undervalued by the absence of its own marketing base and its dependence on larger commercial establishments that are concerned with the profits that accrue from their own "mark-ups" and not with offering the producer a fair price. This, he says, is the result of an absence of policies that recognize and seek to protect the indigenous craft industry and to ensure that the talents of producers are adequately compensated. It is, he says, a recipe for the disappearance of the industry.
If they have not entirely given up on securing a commercial breakthrough on the local craft market George and Hughes say that their current focus is on the regional market through which they can attract the greater number of tourists that visit the conventional regional tourist destinations like Barbados and Jamaica. Their production efforts are presently geared towards producing craft "in volumes" and simply placing them on the regional market where they say they hope that whatever marketing success the Caribbean would have derived from Cricket World Cup will have some "spin off" for Jah Works.
Still, they remain open to such opportunities as the local market has to offer, particularly through hotels, tourist resorts, commercial outlets and other local enterprises that have access to visitors to Guyana. And in an industry that still lacks the financial muscle to undertake costly marketing initiatives that target what George and Hughes believe is a huge potential market, the real breakthrough for Guyana's craft industry can only come through the genuine collective support of government and the private sector for what is still, essentially, a cottage industry.