Ethiopian potters unite in hopes of better future

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In Kechene, an Addis Ababa neighborhood known for being Ethiopia’s pottery-making hub, the winds of change have been blowing.

Kechene residents, many of whom have been making pottery in their homes for most of their lives, are joining forces with a view to boosting productivity in hopes of offsetting dwindling business.

Today, many of Kechene’s potters now work under the auspices of burgeoning cooperative structures.

“Doing it separately, we weren’t earning enough income,” potter Meseret Tilahun told Anadolu Agency. “[But] there have been improvements in our incomes after the government brought us together under a cooperative.”

Now every cooperative in the area has as many as 60 members, mostly women, who work in workshops and sheds.

Tilahun said the government’s main role was helping the area’s potters organize and providing them with plots of land on which they can do their jobs efficiently.

However, she said, “There has been no financial support from the government side.”

The women – sitting in the shade – toil at their clay, turning soil into a sort of paste before molding it into various products, which are then dried and shelved.

Clay products are varied, ranging from pots and kettles to cooking pans and vases.

“The improvement in our incomes is not that great, but it is a change all the same,” she said, noting that members of the cooperative generally earned up to 800 birr (roughly $42) per month.

Ethiopia has a long history of pottery-making. Ethiopian Jews have traditionally been known as skillful potters and pottery sellers.

During Ethiopia’s long centuries of feudalism, however, there was little appreciation for skilled craftsmen. At this time, Ethiopian potters came to be regarded as being of low birth.

“Pottery was regarded as a trade of the lowly,” Tilahun, who like many of her colleagues learned the craft from her family, lamented.

“But recently, attitudes of people are changing for the better,” she added. “People who used to discriminate [against] us for having been potters are now coming to join us.”