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Visiting the Zulucow Artisans in South Africa – With your generous donations, they bought food. 

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Working lady in work room, ethically-made, artisan-made, sustainable interiors, cowhide bags, cowhide rugs, sustainable, slow fashion,
21
Mar

It’s been a few weeks since I returned home from South Africa. It was such an inspiring, motivating and ultimately exhausting trip. I wanted to share my reflections, thanks for your donations and thoughts on my return in this blog post.

Thanks for your donations!

First and foremost I have to say another big thanks for every single donation you sent me. The Zulu ladies and their wonderful families loved all of the clothing donations and were blown away by the staggering £620 that you donated to them. Food is at an all-time high in South Africa so the ladies wanted to put the money towards buying a few extra months’ worths of staple food supplies such as rice, mielie meal, lentils and oils.

Gcinile (one of Zulucow's talented seamstresses) with some of the groceries she bought with your donations

The trip

During my heart-warming trip, I spent a lot of time with the Zulu ladies and their families. I am always humbled by their kind-hearted personalities and passion. Zulucow provides opportunities for these women to earn money and to help provide not only for their immediate families but also for their brothers, sisters and communities; which makes it even more special to me.

One evening we went to Gcinile’s home for supper with her 5 daughters! It was a wonderful evening and she introduced us to her daughters who are all proudly studying hard; one is a nurse’s assistant; another a teacher; another has done well in her matric (A levels) and another is training in computing.

Gcinle, a sole provider for her family, is adamant her girls have a skill and job to support themselves. She said the money you donated her, will help pay for her rent, electricity and buses to get her daughters to their colleges (for the next few months.) This is an outstanding achievement; all thanks to your generous donations.

Dinner with the Zulu ladies and their daughters in South Africa

New Products

If you follow me over on Instagram you may have seen a sneak peek of some new products coming your way very soon! Whilst in South Africa I worked with the Zulu ladies to create some amazing new bag and homeware designs which I am very excited about.

Every time you buy one of these new products you really are helping contribute to the talented Zulucow team. Thandi (pictured below) is also a sole provider for her 2 boys, brothers, sisters and local community. She really appreciated your donations as she said the money she saved from not buying food for 3 months, has enabled her to buy 10 bags of cement and a load of sand to start building a house for her brother!

Zulu ladies in workshop with sewing machine and cowhide hand bag ethically-made, artisan-made, sustainable interiors, cowhide bags, cowhide rugs, sustainable, slow fashion,

THANK YOU!

I really can’t thank the Zulucow community enough for your overwhelming donations; your generosity blows me away. You have helped bring smiles to many faces after a tough few years, so thank you once again. I hope that by seeing these images and hearing my stories, you realise what a huge difference you are making.