About IYAWE
A marketplace for Rwandan art, craft and fashion, built so the people who make the work keep the relationship with the people who buy it.
What this is
IYAWE is an online marketplace for work made in Rwanda — paintings, imigongo, sculpture, ceramics, beadwork and fashion. Every piece is listed by the artist or workshop that made it, priced by them, and shipped from their own studio.
We are not a gallery buying stock and reselling it. Each maker runs their own shop here: their story, their photographs, their prices, their inventory.
Why we built it
Rwandan makers have never been short of work worth buying. What has been missing is a straight line between the studio and the buyer — one that does not lose most of the value to intermediaries, and does not require every artist to build a shop from scratch.
So the platform handles accounts, payments, delivery and payouts, and gets out of the way of the rest.
The makers
Every shop is verified before it becomes visible. We check that the shop is real, that the work is theirs, and that there is someone who will answer when an order arrives.
Once verified, a maker controls their own catalogue and fulfils their own orders. We hold the money until an order is delivered, then release their share.
What we are still building
This is an early platform and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Some things you would expect from a large marketplace are not here yet.
If something is missing or broken, telling us is genuinely useful — we are small enough that it gets read.