The people

 

Veronica was borne in 1968 as the first of two twins near Durban. She has two sisters and two brothers. Her parents both emigrated with the boat from Holland after the war. And that is where they met.

Her twin sister and her both visited the technikon in Durban for Fashion Design and finished her degree there in 1989. She moved to Johannesburg where she ended up working a lot with costumes and leather. Then she took a break from fashion and sewing, and spent some time developing herself as an artist. While on her travels visiting searching for her relatives in Holland she met her husband in Belgium. They now both live in Fish Hoek and she manages a sewing atelier for Khanyisa Products where the African Baby Carrier is being made. The idea is to teach black woman that already know a bit of sewing and to teach them how to use an industrial machine and to enable them to either earn a living form home or in the atelier. Veronicas dream is to run with this project and to gain experience so that she can at a later point in her live start a project like this somewhere in the country side.

 

 

 

Nozabathini was born in 1964 in Queenstown. She has 2 children and one grandchild. It was in Queenstown that she first was trained to sew. She worked as a machinist in a factory there until it closed, and then moved to Cape Town. Although a qualified machinist, her employment card – which at that time she, like all ‘non-white’ South Africans, was forced to carry under Apartheid Pass Laws – did not read machinist, and so she was unable to get work at the factory in Woodstock when she applied. Instead, although a super-qualified machinist – as Veronica calls her - she worked as a domestic worker in Cape Town for a number of years. She says of her wishes for the future, and for African Baby Carrier: “I wish the business can grow so that I can become full-time. It’s nice to work here but it is not permanent because the business is not big. We would like it to grow.”.

 

 

 

Nosakhele was born in Stellenbosch in 1965. She lives in Masiphumelele near Fish Hoek, as do her two daughters and 3 grandchildren. As a child, she spent time in Beaufort, and three years with an aunt in Cape Town. She learnt sewing from her mother when she was 16 years old, and from that time it became her dream to sew for a living as it is a good way to earn one’s money. She worked in a bakery for 5 years and as a domestic worker for 3 years, but held her dream of sewing alive, until she found work with Veronica. Nosakhele also makes beautiful clothes for clients.

 

 

design by www.brainstorm.co.za. Copyright Nov 2006