In remote Langa Langa Lagoon in the Solomon Islands, the traditional occupation of creating beautifully crafted shell money is being kept alive by a local businesswoman and resident, Hilda Sofaemaena.
In 2025, Hilda received a BLP grant from the Small Grant Facility to support her shell making enterprise, which supports this indigenous industry on the island of Malaita. “Here in Langa Langa, shell money is the main means of livelihood.”
Where employment for local village women is scarce, Hilda’s employment of local women to craft the shell money is bringing important revenue to the community. Hilda also runs Taflabana Guest House, which employs 8-10 local staff on a casual basis.
Most of her customers are international visitors who go on shell money tours. “We get international people buying shell money and doing their ‘Tik Toks’.” They also have expatriates who are residents, local Honiara people, small church and school groups visiting Taflabana Guest House.
“The groups learn about shell money, and they are also taught about conservation, and we get them replanting the mangroves.”
Shell money is a traditional form of currency and is still used in Malaita, Guadalcanal and other provinces of the Solomon Islands where Malaitans reside. Shell money today, as in the past is primarily used for compensation, settling disputes, bridal dowry/bride price and land payments. It is also crafted into decorative ornaments for ceremonies and is also sold by villagers to tourists as souvenirs.
Hilda says the supply of shells in the lagoon is getting low. “So now I must supplement local shell stocks with buying shells from the Western Province and that is what I used the BLP grant for as well as to buy hand drills. It’s important livelihood for local women, so the grant helped a lot.”
“Locally, we know that we need to take more active steps to conserve and replenish local shell stocks on the reef to ensure they don’t die out.” She says more work is to be done in this important area of conservation.
As a big advocate for local women and families, she is heavily involved in her local church. “As a small business owner, it can be a bit hectic at times trying to balance the work in the guest house and my volunteer time with the women at the church. When really busy, I delegate to my assistant at the Church or business.”
Another challenge she faces as a small business owner is keeping her financial information all together. “There’s a lot of paper.” Recently, Hilda said she has been using an app to help with recording her income, expenditure and helping with her reconciliation of her books.
More about shell money: The beautifully crafted shells often consist of ten strings of differently coloured shell-discs. There are four different types of shell used to make money, red (Romu, the rarest), brown (kee), white (kakdu) and black (kurila). The shells used are special shells and not just any random seashells. In a very abbreviated summary of the process the shells are gathered from diving in the waters in the area, then dried, broken up into small pieces and shaped into round discs, holes drilled, (the brown shells are heated to change colour to an orangey colour) and then strung on nylon (rather than traditional thread now) and polished down to smooth, round delicate threads of beads.
BLP facilitates access to business advisory services and financial support. To start your journey with BLP, you can self-assess your needs by using the free online tools available to help small- and medium-sized businesses diagnose areas in their businesses that an advisor could improve.
The first step can be the online Business Health Check. You can also check your business’s resilience to respond to crises or climate change challenges on the Business Continuity Planner and the Climate Action Sensor. If you prefer to meet a local BLP representative in person to discuss your business, get in touch with our local partners to arrange a face-to-face Diagnostic.