By providing the opportunity for visitors to experience life in Kenya beyond the usual tourist areas, Peter is exposing the global community to the realities of daily Kenyan life in both rural and urban settings. In so doing, he is enhancing cross-cultural understanding. Drawing on craft-producing organizations that he has helped develop over the past several years, Peter houses tourists in a local community for several days so that they can enjoy and better understand local life. This people-to-people approach to tourism also allows the locals to learn about the visitors' culture and tastes in crafts. Peter is thus helping revive a critically important sector of the Kenyan economy by providing artisan groups and their communities with new sources of livelihood, while at the same time offering cultural awareness opportunities.
Peter is the fourth of 10 children in a polygamous family. He was born in the Nyeri district in the Central Province of Kenya, and his family later moved to the spreading slums on the outskirts of Nairobi. Despite the hardships, his parents were committed to seeing him through school. Like his parents, Peter believes that education is the key to success in life.
Peter completed a diploma in adult education at the University of Nairobi in 1982. He then took a job as a community worker for the National Council of Churches in Kenya (NCCK), which provided him nine years of experience in the field of community development. Peter obtained a master's degree in Education of Adults for Rural Development at the University of Manchester (UK) in 1988. At that point, he decided to leave NCCK and launch the Crafts Village initiative. His decision to begin working in the tourist sector brought sharp criticism from his family, but he has stuck to his belief in boosting economic development through alternative approaches to tourism.
