Zulu Crafts
Staff members
Barbara Borgman
John David and I settled into a home and started a community outreach
ministry in 2000 in the Uthukela Region of KwaZulu Natal, under the
name of Ubuntu Partners. Our vision was to support economic projects
for rural people in post apartheid South Africa, provide for orphan
care in the deepening HIV/AIDS pandemic, and develop our 152 acre
property in ecologically and economically productive ways.
With experience in community based business ( Atlanta, GA, USA) and a passion for cultural traditions, I was immediately drawn into the enthusiasm of local Winterton artist Corina Wolmarans for the craft and traditions of the Amangwe people of this area. I found in her an artist’s eye and an ethnologist’s heart, and she found in me the same, as well as a partner willing to promote and develop marketing of this beadwork.
Together, we slowly developed the beadwork as a business, moving from private sales towards accumulating stock for selling to a wider market. We started holding regular ‘bead markets’, where we bought and placed orders for designs.
Corina and I worked and planned together 2004-2006 until she had to withdraw from Amangwe Zulu Craft in late ’06, to tend to her own career and family. I carried on by myself for a while, wondering how I could really do this alone!, until Roz Thomas joined me towards the end of 2006.
I was excited to be fulfilling my dream to establish a woman’s co operative, income producing, for the mothers and grandmothers holding their families together in these days of HIV/AIDS pandemic and scarcity of jobs.
It is satisfying work for me. Empowering women, providing market outlet for their work and opportunities for them to grow in trust, decision making and skill, as well as providing support for them personally, fulfills my own ministry and social goals.
Paying fair prices for work, money management training, distributing some of the profits to community projects, encouraging mutual support amongst the women are practices I hope many people will applaud and support.
Roz Thomas
Roz, Andy & Jonah Thomas went to South Africa in September 2006 for a 6 month short term mission trip. Whilst living at ‘The Cottages at Injesuti’ for children affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis, Roz met up with Barbara Borgman and saw the regular bead markets held in the hall.
Over those 6 months Roz helped Barbara to run the bead markets and got more involved in marketing the products back in the UK on a very small scale. When the Thomas family left South Africa in February 2007 to head back to the UK, this project was in need of continued assistance and was on Roz’s heart. Therefore when the family decided to move back to South Africa in April 2007 for a longer period of time, Roz once again got involved in the project and it has been slowly growing ever since.
Now with the family heading back to South Africa once again with a new addition to the family – Roz remains involved in the project as much as possible, especially looking to increase the markets abroad.
Roz says ‘This is a wonderful project allowing the local Zulu women to undertake the crafts they are gifted at and enjoy yet at the same time empowering them to help themselves in crafts that are slowly being lost. Every crafter involved is somehow affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis, it is a very real problem which needs to be addressed, and this is just one project aimed at helping families affected.’
Lungile Mayaba
Lungile joined us to help with administration and translation at the bead markets, and she also serves as an excellent counselor and listener for the crafting women. She enjoys hearing about their lives, and is always willing to offer help. She currently lives at the Agathos Cottages, a home for orphans and vulnerable children, where she cares for ten orphaned nieces and nephews and three other children as well. She hopes to use much of her earnings from the bead project on the house she is building for herself and the children she cares for.
She has now set up her own business "Lungile's Cards" with the help from Roz. For more info, please download more details from the right column (the download area) of this page.
Xoliswa Kubheka
Xoliswa Kubheka is 23 years old and she lives in KwaZulu Natal South Africa. A single mother of 2 girls aged 8 and 4 years. She helps at the Amangwe Zulu Crafts project with bead sales, administration and translation. She also helps with the Microfinance for youth project (which gives small loans for youth to set up small businesses). However she is trying to pursue a career in social work and she is a very strong Christian.
Downloads
Please download the catalogue based on where you live
Lungiles's Cards - see a variety of handmade cards which is a seperate business to AZC but run in conjunction. Read more about it by downloading the information below
Our bank account details:
- Standard Bank
- Account No: 164240519
- Account Name: Amangwe Zulu Crafts
- Branch Number: 2571
- Estcourt Branch
- SWIFT Address: SBZA ZA JJ