Two people holding a large, colorful basket between them — Provided Bowker with one of the basket-makers.

Alum helps Kenyan villagers earn a living from their handcrafts

Alumni

8/5/2025

When you go on a trip, you probably take a single suitcase. But when Margaret Higgins Bowker ’68 travels to Kenya, she returns with eight—stuffed to bursting.

The Arts & Sciences alum runs Kenya Arts, a nonprofit that buys handmade baskets from women in remote villages, sells them in the U.S., and returns the profits to the makers. And now, a Cornell undergrad is helping her expand the philanthropic venture online.

Since 2001, Bowker has been buying baskets by the hundreds, then selling them at U.S. markets and craft fairs. Made from sisal plants, they come in a variety of vibrant dyed hues, woven with natural shades to form intricate patterns.

Bowker has bought baskets from more than 500 women in the Taita villages around Kenya’s Mount Kasigau.

As she explains, they’re paid twice for their crafts: once when she buys the baskets, and again when she returns to give them the profits from their subsequent sale in the U.S.

A former zoology major, Bowker first traveled to Kenya in 1973, spending a year doing research for her doctorate in animal behavior from Northern Arizona University.

Read the full story on the Cornellians website.