Palm Crosses

African Palm crosses are made from Dwarf Palms Hyphaena Coriacea which grow wild and are not cultivated. They are then dried and cut into strips before being transported back to the villages in the Masasi area of southern Tanzania: Mpeta, Namikunda, Mlundelunde, Mumbaka, Machombei, Chivirikiti, Makanyama and Marika.

They are then woven into Palm Crosses and taken to a central collection point which at present is in Mpeta. As they are handmade size tends to vary from 15 to 25cm in length. The completed Palm crosses are then taken by road to the nearest port either Mtawra or Dar es Salaam, where they are loaded into containers for shipment to the UK and USA.

The aim of African Palms is to give people living in a very poor part of Tanzania the possibility of earning some extra money. The people’s daily work is the planting of maize, millet and some ground nuts to feed themselves and their families. The important thing about the Palm Cross project is that it does not interfere with their work of producing the food they need to live.

Each cross measures approximately 26cm x 11cm.