YES WE KEN
"Already as a kid, I knew that art was going to help me in the future."
-Kenneth Hafianyo-
"2003 in high school when my shoe got spoilt.
Beginning of my creativity. No money to buy new shoes: I had to use my brain and what I had in hand at that moment."
Kenneth Hafianyo is the founder of Dzogbefa.
He is born in 1985 and comes from the capital city of the Volta Region in Ghana, Ho. Very quickly, he became aware of his artistic potentials when his schoolmates at school were ready to pay him to do their art homework.
From when, Kenneth always remembered that art could eventually become his plan B in life.
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Due to a lack of financial support, Kenneth had to work and sell on the market during his childhood in order to pay his school fees. He also worked straight after completing high school and could not study or do any kind of training as he wished he could. However, after years of employment as a cook, journalist, reporter, DJ, or event manager, Kenneth finally turned back to art.
Kenneth's first self-dyed batik shirt.
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His passion for colors and designs, that was sleeping all this while, became stronger and stronger up to a point he needed to pursue his dream of creating again.
In 2011, he started making batik in his free time while he was working at the Ghana Highways Authorities. That's when he started attracting tourists and other people in his area who really valued his work and creations and encouraged him to continue.
Those people are the people who convinced him to work in a batik center and, later on, to start his own business.
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Kenneth resigned from office in 2013 and worked for 2 years in his a batik center in Ho. However, Kenneth was not fully satisfied working there. Apart from the poor working conditions, it was even more the fact that new initiatives and personal creativity were not followed up that Kenneth decided to create a business of his own. That is when he set up Dzogbefa, in summer 2015.
Kenneth wearing traditional West-African clothing made by Dzogbefa during fashion show in Ho, 2018.