Ben and Katy Ray are CMS mission partners in training, preparing to go out in 2011 to the Diocese of Ruaha, Iringa, Tanzania to work with Neema Crafts, a project that provides crafts training for deaf and physically disabled people; the crafts are then sold via their shop and website www.neemacrafts.com.

Ben and Katy will take up the management of Neema Crafts, intending to use their design and education backgrounds to help continue and develop the holistic work of this project in the years to come.

Current CMS partners Andy and Susie Hart helped to establish Neema Crafts in 2003. Since then, it has grown rapidly and now employs over 90 people.

Ben is currently a teacher at Monkton Combe School, Bath where he is head of Design and Technology. He studied Product Design and Manufacture at Loughborough University, and has previously worked in Tanzania on a number of development projects through his previous church St John’s, Blackheath. He has had a long held dream of setting up a manufacturing project that would provide vocational training for Tanzanians.

Having studied Fashion and Textiles at Bath Spa University, Katy now works as a freelance designer, with a studio based within Monkton Combe School. During her second year placement, Katy worked at Neema Crafts designing and training staff in print making. Whilst she was there she was inspired by the potential of the project and has a heart to see employees set up their own small enterprises using the skills they have learnt.

It was when visiting Neema Crafts together in 2007 that Ben and Katy saw how much the work of the project resonated with their own calling. Having both spent their gap years working in rural Tanzanian villages, they were already aware of the extreme poverty in the country and its inevitable affects on the most vulnerable. So when they saw firsthand how Neema Crafts was directly transforming lives, through providing training and employment and therefore giving a sense of worth to the most marginalised, they were inspired by the knowledge that projects like this did really make a difference.
Keep up to date with Ben and Katy at http://www.benandkatyray.blogspot.com/

Published: 5:12 PM :: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 :: 2524 views :: ::
Last updated: Monday, December 13, 2010
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