Ibu Trade specialises in Eco Gifts, Handmade Gifts & Fair Trade Shopping

Sisonke

A women’s beadwork and sewing co-operative

Sisonke means "togetherness" in isiXhosa, one of South Africa's indigenous languages. The Sisonke cooperative gives HIV+ mothers the chance to earn a living for their families and improve their quality of life.

The group has expanded to 14 women who are now producing sewn, as well as beaded, items for sale at home and abroad. The women work in two containers next door to the local clinic, and their children join them at midday, after attending a pre-school run by another NGO in the neighborhood. The co-operative continues to be a source of mutual support and encouragement to the women and their children, as well as bringing in some much-needed income. Over the years, the group has had many ups and downs in terms of both their health and their earnings from their beading work, with these two factors also being interconnected. However, the group has continued and even expanded to another area called New Crossroads. The New Crossroads group, work from a bungalow in the area, having increased their work-days to four per week.

The dog collar project has not been an easy venture. The collars are extremely labour-intensive and require precision and time. In the beginning the mothers struggled with maintaining a consistent quality, with many collars being rejected and the women feeling disappointed at their loss of earnings. However, there has now been a vast improvement in terms of consistent quality and reaching production goals. Despite this improvement, sadly, their main client decided to pull out of the project. This left a marketing gap which needed to be filled as well as impacting on the consistency of the women’s earnings. A limited number of collars were sold overseas by a staff member and collars have been sold to local customers. However the supervisor and Trainer/Managers have had to focus on exploring new markets. Despite the few setbacks, the growth of business skills and increased confidence has been noteworthy in the past year. Funding support was also obtained from two faith-based organizations in this period. The Sisonke trainer/ managers have attended a few of Nacosa’s courses this year to their benefit, such as accounting etc. The project supervisor has reported that they have functioned far more independently than before, where they are able to reconcile their own income & expenditure - with her support. This is an achievement, in the Project where they are moving towards more independence.

Ibu is proud to be an outlet in support of the Sisonke women's courage and skills.