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Products
Meet the Producers
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B & B Crafts
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Ben Ncube started B & B Craft & Recycling as an individual artisan working in the new South African tradition of making crafts from recycled materials, such as tin cans and discarded wire and incorporating beads in his designs. As the demand for the products he made grew, Ben, “the Can Man” started training apprentices in the art form, paying them a fair price for the products they produced. The training and production provides a sustainable income for a growing number of young people in Cape Town.
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GuguCrafters
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In 2002, as Zimbabwe refugees in South Africa, Gugulethu Mapuranga, his family and friends created the micro-enterprise of GuguCrafters. Realizing that the craft sector in South Africa could provide a much-needed sustainable income, the artisans honed their skills and designed unique jewelry items from tin cans and beads.
While hoping they had found safe haven from the political turmoil and economic collapse in Zimbabwe, the group found itself in 2008 the victim of xenophobic attacks, with their small workshop looted. After two months, the group was able to purchase new tools and materials with fair trade customers advances and begin again making unusual jewelry pieces from their homes in Cape Town.
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Ilala Weavers
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Ilala Weavers is situated at Hluhluwe within the province of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. The organizations was established some 30 years ago, with a clear vision and objective of revitalizing and enhancing the age-old Zulu tradition of handcrafts, which at the time were in danger of being lost forever.
Today, Ilala Weavers helps over 2000 Zulu people, both men and women, to attain self sufficiency, by working from their homes and therefore retaining their lifestyle and rich heritage of basket weaving and bead work, which has been passed down through the generations by Zulu crafters, whose modern counterparts today produce stunning works of art, sought after the world over.
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The BAT Shop
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The Bartel Arts Trust, or the BAT Shop, is an urban-based community art center that is a venue and facility for skills training, promotion and exposure of disadvantaged and emergent artists in South Africa. The focus of the center is local arts, culture, crafts and entertainment that reflects the Zulu, Indian and Western heritage of KwaZulu-Natal. The difference at BAT is the grassroots, the experimental, the cross-arts trends and the innovation that is promoted at the center.
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Wola Nani
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Wola Nani, Xhosa for "we embrace and develop one another", was established in 1994 as a non-profit organization to help bring relief to the communities hardest hit by the HIV crisis in South Africa. Wola Nani initiated programs to help HIV+ people in the local community cope with the emotional and financial strains brought about by HIV and AIDS.
Wola Nani Crafts emerged in response to the need for unemployed, HIV-positive women to generate an income. Through a developmental, self help approach the members have been enabled to take greater control of their lives and achieve a better quality of life. The crafts are made by the women themselves and also by caregivers of AIDS patients.
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