Bag ladies’ gifts for royals
● What do Richard Branson, Alicia Keys, Jamie Oliver and Jada Pinkett-Smith have in common?
Apart from being A-List celebrities, they’re all owners of a nifty South African invention — the Wonderbag, a simple but revolutionary, non-electric portable slow cooker.
Prince Harry and his soon-to-be-princess, Meghan Markle, will be the latest personalities to own the creation that provides employment to women and is used by about 1.2 million people across the world.
The bag was invented by Sarah Collins and is produced in her factory at Tongaat, 48km north of Durban.
A month ago she was contacted by a UK charity, Africa’s Gift, which conducts upliftment projects in Southern African countries.
The charity had a special royal wedding commission for two bags, one that needed to be elegant and simple and another that reflected military prowess.
The bags were to be gifts from Africa’s Gift for the royal couple, who are set to tie the knot on May 19.
Markle is a well-known foodie who enjoys a bit of time with her pots and pans.
Prince Harry proposed to her while they were preparing roast chicken together at their cottage.
So the novel insulated bag is likely to find pride of place in the royal kitchen.
The bag is a heat-retention cooker. The idea of mass producing it came to Collins when the country was hit by power failures in 2008. “In homes around the world, people bring their food to a boil in a pot for about 20 minutes, then place the pot into a Wonderbag to finish cooking. Once the pot is nestled inside the Wonderbag, it continues to cook.
“Women cooking with a Wonderbag can save 1 465 hours of work each year by reducing the amount of time spent over an open flame or gathering cooking fuels. This gives women time to earn an income,” Collins said.
Thousands of women are now selling the bags in their communities to earn a living.
Africa’s Gift — which also supports the sale of the Wonderbag overseas — will ask its patron, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, to present the bags to the bridal couple when he attends the wedding. The two princes founded the Sentebale Charity, which helps vulnerable children in Lesotho and Botswana.
It took Collins’s workers a day to make the two bags, Both are embroidered with the recipients’ names and the date of the wedding. One is made from camouflage material, the other in black and white.
“The royals won’t be the only celebrities to own or use the Wonderbag,” said Collins, before rattling off the names of the celebrities mentioned above, along with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Annie Lennox and Chelsea Clinton. Africa’s Gift founder Ken Dunn is confident the prince will like the gift.
“He is an outdoor type of person, so I have no doubt he will use the bags. We will most definitely get the gifts to Prince Harry and Meghan.”