We hope you enjoy these pictures of toys from Kenya and Ghana. They are a sampling of the pictures on the AfriGadget flickr group. The materials used to make these toys are scrap metal, tins, wire, and pieces of leather.
Wire Bikes
Ghana
Colorful bikes
Spray can wheels
Red Dynamo
Wire Motor Bike from Kenya
Cars and Tractor
Tin Cars from Ghana
From Kenya:
Wire Landrover
Wire Tractor
I like the last two toys and I’ve possibly seen them being sold outside Sarit centre in Nairobi.
I did a quick patent search for wired toys and nothing close to this came up. Knowing American’s knack for toys, these toys have the potential to be commercialized.
At a net profit of $1 per toy at walmart, they can make one a millionaire several times over. The down side is such a large scale production requires a huge investment. For that reason they should start small and see where it takes them.
this is grate! love it.
I’ve seen the twisted wire models for sale in many places. extremegeek.com used to sell them but apparently don’t anymore. I did a little googling and found “twisted warriors” at this site:
http://www.kleargear.com/desktoppers.html
Models sold for between $25 and $80 bucks. If afrigadget.com starts selling these in your store I’ll bet you and the artisans will do quite well. I know I’ll buy.
WELL DONE.VERY CLEVER
There’s a organization called 10,000 Villages that sells similarly recycled metal goods- mostly jewelry right now, but I would imagine that if these toys become popular, this would be an easy (and ethical!) place to look for them first.
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/catalog/artisan.detail.php?artisan_id=21
Now if only the political future of Kenya becomes clearer, and the threat of tribal violence against Kikuyus settles once and for all, I can travel there to see my wife’s family once again.
Wow! I love these!
So fun & cute looking, especially the spray can wheels.
Thanks for sharing!
These are absolutely fantastic. I collected some similar toys on my trips to Africa but these are mind-blowingly creative. I want more! It is amazing what beauty can be created from so little.
Char
Amazing, they’re really cool.
stumbled.
nhick
http://www.itrush.com
Amazing. We have the same toys here in Cape Verde.
wANDERFULL TOYS AND ECOLOGICAL!
wow..I’ve been wanting to learn this art of bending wires into motorcycles…I only managed to learn to bend wire into name keychain.