The traditional art of beading has reinvented itself and is turning into a money-spinner, says Alice Coetzee
The centuries-old tradition of beadmaking, passed from mother to daughter, is taking on a new meaning in helping to break the cycle of poverty for rural woman.
Through the vision and marketing flair of Thembeka Nkamba-van Wyk, former civil servant turned businesswoman, bead-making has become a flourishing commercial enterprise.
Talking Beads was started in 1997 and now involves more than 1 000 women countrywide. Its customers are as diverse as Zanele Mbeki, the Coca-Cola Corporation, the Reserve Bank and foreign embassies – and it supplied the Non-Aligned Movement summit held in Durban last year.
The beaded Aids ribbons on the lapels of politicians, gifts given to visiting dignitaries and logos in corporate boardrooms all demonstrate ways in which this traditional art has reinvented itself.
It started when Nkamba-van Wyk, then chief director of the South African Communication Services (Sacs), met two women selling vetkoek outside her Pretoria office.
“Business was bad and when I asked them what else they could do, they said they made beadwork. I gave them R200 and a week later they returned with beautifully beaded Ndbele dolls,” she remembers.
Soon the women were supplying gifts for official functions but, as the business grew, so did the frustrations for Nkamba- van Wyk as she battled to introduce further women’s empowerment projects into the Sacs and other government departments.
The crunch came when the women received an order for 500 beaded mugs and couldn’t deliver. Nkamba-van Wyk decided to leave and, using her pension pay-out, set up a business that could provide proper training and support for women beaders.
“I couldn’t see a career for myself as a bureaucrat,” she says. “I wanted to work with people, not push paper.
“I don’t think any government can empower people, no matter how good it is. People must empower themselves. Government needs to create the atmosphere and it is for us to grab the opportunities and tap the resources.”
After negotiations with the Pretoria City Council, she was given the use of a disused clinic at the edge of the city centre. Now decorated with eye-catching Ndebele designs and displaying a profusion of Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Shangaan and Ndebele beadwork, the old building has taken on new life.
The first four women to join Talking Beads were from KwaNdebele. “They had been doing beadwork for years but never made any money because they would be beaten down by buyers at curio shops and flea markets wanting the work for next to nothing.
“In the beginning we thought we would establish a factory here in Pretoria, but the older women didn’t want to leave home. So we decided to work through the villages.”
Having grown up in the rural Eastern Cape, Nkamba-van Wyk knew she could not go directly into the villages to recruit beaders.
Instead, women come to her through word of mouth. After an initial meeting the women go back to the village and appoint a co- ordinator to deal with the chief and the other structures.
“Only once everyone has been consulted will the co-ordinator arrange a meeting for me with the community leaders.”
In this way the Talking Beads network has extended across Gauteng, to Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Co- ordinators close to Pretoria visit the office weekly to discuss projects, exchange goods and money, while those further afield are visited by Nkamba-van Wyk.
The central philosophy driving Talking Beads is empowerment. Training is provided at three levels: basic beading; intermediate, where women learn how to make saleable items; and advanced beading for commissioned work such as corporate logos and messages.
A fourth course, essential for long-term sustainability, is the provision of business skills. This equips the women to cost their items, understand tender procedures, deal with difficult customers who won’t pay, market their items and do basic bookkeeping.
The training enables the beaders to become businesswomen in their own right. When not producing for Talking Beads, they sell their products to curio shops and hotels.
Talking Beads managed to deliver on its first international tender in record time last year. It was commissioned to produce 13 000 items for the Non-Aligned Movement summit within three weeks.
The co-ordinators spent three days in Pretoria learning the design specifications and quality-control measures. “If one string had broken, it would have ruined our reputation. We didn’t want to break the trust the organisers had in us because we had competed against international companies.”
That success led to more business, the latest contract being the production of 1 500 items for the dinner this weekend of the new governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni. The gifts include an authentic Ndebele apron for Deputy Governor Gill Marcus.
As Talking Beads’s reputation grows, Nkamba- van Wyk finds she can’t keep up with the demand for training. The Free State Department of Arts and Culture and the Benoni City Council are the latest to knock on her door.
“I tell organisations I won’t train people unless there are projects which the women can do and resources available, like money to buy beads. Training raises people’s hopes, and we are already dealing with people who have been knocked by life.”