Sara Nazoor

Founder, Lead Design and Community Outreach, ALKE Sri Lanka

As a self-taught jewelry artist from Sri Lanka, Sara Nazoor works mainly with semi-precious and recycled material, and her pieces lean more towards a contemporary style. ALKE was founded for the love of jewelry making in 2014 by her as a handcrafted jewelry label.

She has worked with Emerge Global as a design mentor at their incubation center, training young women in designing and manufacturing jewelry. In 2015 she showcased at ARTWALK in Sri Lanka, and in 2016 her work was placed third at the International Art and Design Competition conducted by Academia Riaci, Italy. She was also chosen as a mentor for the Shilpa Saviya design mentoring program in 2017 by the Colombo Design Market.

Her passion for psychology led her to join the Footsteps to Freedom II a walk around the island in 2018 as the only female and Tamil-speaking walker.

In an attempt to find solutions for the pilling waste management issues in the community, Sara started working with unconventional materials such as single-use plastic, fabric sourced from used clothes, and so on. Armed with this experience in 2019 ALKE was re-launched as a sustainable and contemporary label.