Wired for success
New weaving skill got crafter through mother’s death and Covid-19, and now she’s teaching it to others
While mourning the death of her mother in 2020, Nobukhosi Malonde picked up a new skill to occupy her mind.
Four years later, that skill not only puts food on her table but saw her now late son through university and continues to change the lives of other budding crafters.
“I saw a poster on someone’s WhatsApp profile picture advertising a wire-weaving workshop that was going to be held on March 2 2020,” Malonde said.
“I had no idea what that was, but because I was stressed and struggling to cope with my mother’s passing. I decided I was going to attend the workshop by Nela Kahle Art and Crafts.
“There were about 50 of us in the workshop and we were taught to make one pair of earrings and a weaving basket.”
After the workshop, Malonde ordered material to start making her own jewellery.
She used it to make more earrings and taught herself new patterns at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As I was making the earrings, I found that I was enjoying focusing on what I was doing.
“It reduced my stress and relaxed my mind. I had no customers at the time, so I was just making the jewellery with no-one in mind.
“Once I had made a lot of them, I put them in a 2l bucket, took them to town, and sold them to people who saw and liked them. To this day, I don’t go to town without my bucket.”
Malonde said the income she made from the jewellery had got her through the pandemic.
“It was a tough time for many of us. My son was at university. He got through university with the telephone wire jewellery income.
“Unfortunately, he passed in April 2023 shortly before he was due to graduate.”
Malonde’s business boomed as she added necklaces, bracelets and other jewellery.
She advertised her business on social media and offered to pass the skill on by holding her own workshops in cities across the country.
“In August 2023, Nela Kahle Art and Crafts added me to WhatsApp groups that had other crafters.
“I introduced my own workshops where I teach people using my own material and they get to keep whatever they make. I charge R650.”
Malonde held her first workshop in Johannesburg, and then held more in East London, Gqeberha, Durban and Cape Town.
She later held more in Gqeberha and KwaZulu-Natal’s Empangeni and Ulundi.
“The more you do this work, the more you get the hang of it and fall in love with it,” she said.
“This kind of work is not genderspecific. You can do it regardless of your age or gender.
“In my East London class I had a 20-year-old man who is now doing his own work. I had a 14-year-old boy in Ulundi and a 71-year-old woman in Johannesburg.
“It’s not about your age. You just need eyes that can see and hands that work.”
Her workshops have been attended by the unemployed, employed, young and old alike.
“I wish all South Africans would consider this kind of work because we have unemployed graduates who have lost hope and resorted to alcohol and drug abuse.
“Some youths don’t have university qualifications or even matric but this is a skill no-one would ever take away from them,” she said.
Malonde can be reached on 064093-1498.