Brave step pays off for designer
● Former cashier now able to share skills with others
With just R435 in her pocket and home-taught sewing skills, Motherwell entrepreneur Nombuyiselo Zinco left her cashier job with no plan – but with a desperate need to succeed.
Fast forward six years and she is now providing free training for unemployed women, travelling as far as King William’s Town and Jansenville to do so.
In 2012, Zinco clocked out of the Motherwell Zonke SPAR to go to buy material in Korsten for six scatter cushions.
The profit from those cushions funded her now successful international beadwork and family sewing business.
Now, 43-year-old Zinco owns successful Nombuyi Designs, and co-owns Isandla Sethu Hub with her daughter, Xabisa, 21, and her father, Thembani, 75 – who taught her how to crochet.
Zinco says growing up in a sewing and crocheting family inspired her love for beadwork.
Sharing her story from a makeshift sewing studio that houses three automatic sewing machines, Zinco painted a picture of a flourishing business.
Using only her Facebook page, Nombuyi Designs Traditional beads and imibhaco, to market her art, she has managed to gather customers from Qatar, the UK and Ireland.
“I left my job to pursue a career in sewing but I only officially began with the beadwork in 2015,” she said.
“This [beadwork] has always been my first love and it is the most profitable business I have ever pursued.
“I love beadwork so much that I sometimes dream of new designs and start with the jewellery pieces in the middle of the night.
“Beadwork for me has become a way of life,” she said.
“I officially opened Nombuyi Designs in 2012 and last year in October, I decided to open another business [Isandla Sethu Hub] with my daughter and father, which focuses on beadwork training.”
Zinco says protecting the diminishing skill of beadwork is far more important than the cost of providing the training.
“For employed people who want to acquire the skill out of interest, I charge R550 a week but we provide the skill free to unemployed women.
“I am not doing this because I have money, but because I know how it feels not to have something and because this skill is diminishing,” she said.
“My mom taught me to share things with others – this has always shaped my values and how I do business.”
Having trained 13 people since opening the training school, one of her proudest moments was seeing one of her students dressing popular Mhlobo Wenene radio host Spitch Nzawumbi.
Asked why she only trains women, Zinco said she wants to see more independent young women in the future.
“When I left school after having completed my Std 10 (grade 12), I knew I had to find employment to make money, but I never knew that I could use the skill that I had to make money – I want women to see this is possible,” she said.
“I wish that women [would] learn to be independent from a young age [so] they are not reliant on men to make [them] money.”
Next week, Zinco will be travelling to King William’s Town to provide training.
During the sessions, she hopes to make 50 beaded pins with the cancer logo to donate to an East London-based cancer organisation.