Wabbani collaborates with IKEA to repurpose unsold doors with help from Indigenous artisans from Guyana

Upcycled doors from IKEA serve as the foundation of the handwoven basketry door inserts from Wabbani, a home decor enterprise that collaborates with Indigenous artisans from Guyana, South America, to produce handmade products.
With a mission to create fair-wage employment and generate funds for community development in the remote villages in Guyana, Wabbani has teamed up with IKEA to make use of the furniture retailer’s unsold doors — and diverting products from the landfill — by creating limited-edition IKEA doors with a handwoven flare: adding the Indigenous-made panels onto the doors.
The wardrobe doors come in a collection of four options: Annatto, Rainy Doors, June Green, and Tattoo Blue. Each option comes in a selection of prints and patterns, including a repetitive diamondback anaconda print and chevron-like print. All of the upcycled IKEA doors are a light beige, but can be painted over to match Wabbani’s different handwoven panels. All of the options are compatible with IKEA’s PAX wardrobe system.
Alternatively, Wabbani also sells the handwoven add-on basketry inserts for other types of IKEA furniture and kitchen cabinets — the latter of which are all compatible with IKEA’s SEKTION kitchen cabinets, including Grimslov, Tohamn, Lerhyttan, Bjorket, and Ekestad. The kitchen and furniture inserts come in the same general colour and patterns available for the wardrobe doors.
Wabbani culminated from the work of Rupununi Learners Foundation and Caiman House Incorporated, two non-profit organisations that both support environmental, social, and educational programmes in the Rupununi region of Guyana in South America.
Wabbani LLC is a for-profit social enterprise that collaborates with Indigenous communities to produce handmade, culturally-authentic home décor which personalises IKEA home furnishings.
Wabbani was spun off the work of two non-profits, Rupununi Learners Foundation, a US 501(c)3, and Caiman House Incorporated, a Guyanese non-profit corporation which partners to support environmental, social and educational programmes in and around Yupukari Village in the Rupununi region.
The decision to make Wabbani a for-profit company stemmed from the mission to create not only fair-wage employment, but also to be able to attract investment for scale, thereby generating significant funds for community development.

The Backstory
In 2005, Alice Layton (Founder), Peter Taylor and their 9-year-old son moved to the Macushi village of Yupukari in Guyana, South America. Peter was there to research a poorly-understood animal, the black caiman. Alice, as a social worker/librarian, established a collaboration with village school teachers to create a public library and classroom libraries to help them improve the teaching of reading.
Villagers credit the Yupukari Public Library and its outreach activities with the consistent rise in the pass rate from primary to secondary school, from near zero in 2005 to 86 per cent in 2019.
Alice established Rupununi Learners Foundation, a US non-profit, and a few years later Yupukari created Rupununi Learners Inc (now Caiman House Incorporated), to manage all the projects and funding, which has included grants from multiple zoos, the IUCN, and others. Everything done at Caiman House Inc is village-owned and operated.
While the libraries took shape, Peter trained villagers to capture the formerly avoided caiman (up to 14 feet long), notate observations, mark, release, and recapture them for a long-term study (still ongoing) to understand the animal and its role in the environment. Tourists in the region soon got wind of the project, and before long the team was hosting “follow boats” of enthusiasts who, once the caiman were immobilised and jaws taped, could enjoy a bucket-list opportunity to get up close with a top predator and help out with the study.
They quickly realised that the village had an opportunity to get into the tourism business, with the “Caiman Project” as the unique attraction. Interest grew, and so did the urge to link with other communities in the region and build a village guest house. Out of that dream the Caiman House Lodge was born. The Lodge has since won tourism awards and mentions by architects. The revenue from the Lodge has been the primary funding for the Yupukari Public Library.
From the experience of “crafting” the Lodge and its furnishings and decorations, the idea of the opportunity to create sustainable income for artisans while preserving the Macushi culture was born. In 2018, Alice founded Wabbani LLC in St Louis, MO with Paul Dinkins. Their vision is to use their resources and expertise to connect remote, rural artisans with a global marketplace. And it’s the combined skill sets of North and South that now bring Wabbani to you.
A word of Arawak origin, “Wabbani” means “platform,” as in, a hunter’s treetop hide. Wabbani is an ecommerce platform for remote crafters all over the world, connecting them with the global market for home furnishings. Our aim is to preserve endangered cultures and habitats by creating the village-based jobs that keep families and communities intact, and crafts alive.