Nation Online

Kamoto’s passion for décor

With a passion to transform things, Mirriam Kamoto works with various natural resources for interior and exterior décor, handicrafts, business clinics and events management.

Her passion for plants and flowers dates back to the time she was working for Standard Bank.

Kamoto said she would still tend her garden properly while doing crafts as a hobby. It was not until 2009, a year after her retirement at the bank, that she went full time into décor.

“There are a lot of things that one can do with natural resources. Whenever I travel, I collect several and then explore ways and means of playing around with them to come up with beautiful items that can be used for décor,” she said.

Kamoto collects anything from sand, to maize sheaths, maize cobs and banana leaves to create something from them.

Visiting her shop at the Chichiri Trade Fair grounds in Blantyre, one sees various sand arrangements in clear glasses and different colours.

“I can make décor items from almost anything that I can lay my eyes on. I have recycled Orange Squash bottles, for example. I am able to paint the bottle and turn it into something that one can use for decoration purposes. Even the maize; a lot of us only think of maize as food, but there is a lot we can do with that maize. We, for instance, can make dolls out of the sheaths. We can use the cobs in place of dry flowers and put them in a flower vase and so on,” said the mother of three boys.

She does not do everything herself as she only develops a concept for some items and the actual work is finished by someone else.

Through linkages with organisations such as the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the National Small and Medium Enterprises (Nasme) and others, Kamoto’s Tayamiko Investments sees avenues opening for global markets.

They have earmarked products such as handcrafts, designer fabric accessories, ceramics, candles and packaged indigenous vegetables.

Before she ventured into décor, Kamoto served in different positions in credit management, retail banking and business development, among others, at Standard Bank where she worked for 24 years.