BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE– Goal achieved!
The European Union (EU) and the International Trade Centre (ITC), in collaboration with JEREMPAUL, have assisted 19 young people from Vuvulane community to complete their training in fashion and home-ware design from Khulekani Msweli, Eswatini’s first modern luxury designer who has made his mark in the fashion and design scenes.
They formerly concluded their training with a graduation ceremony and exhibition that showcased the talented graduates’ designs.
The class was made up of 20 students handpicked from an initial pool of 40 pre-selected candidates. Class modules included design training, textile up cycling for fashion and home accessories, and designing leather accessories and wood products.
Thuli Vilakati is one of the graduates from the fashion and home-ware design training and she used to sell homemade ice blocks within her community in Vuvulane and reeled on seasonal sugarcane fields’ jobs. The course has allowed her to move on to selling high-quality leather products beyond her community, a change she is grateful for.
“I believe that this is my first turning point that will change my path in life,” she said.
She has already sold some of the pieces she produced during the training and has more orders in the pipeline and she says she has planned to mobilise resources to service her orders and expand production.
Vilakati’s story is exactly what JEREMPAUL’s Director Khulekani Msweli had hoped for when he started this initiative– an opportunity to open up new job opportunities for the youth in his community, and to elevate the country’s design potential.
Commenting on the products showcased at the graduation, Msweli said this was only the beginning of the learners’ design journey.
“The exhibition was a pure celebration of what we can achieve when we put our minds and hands together. The number of good products which each learner made brought so much joy and hope to all of us. It is during such moments that I see the potential this country holds and the hope for a better future for us all,” he said.
He thanked the EU and ITC for making the training possible and the other facilitators who shared their knowledge and committed their time in making the course a success.
EU Programme Officer, Luis Miguel Pascoal, was equally impressed by the products on display.
“We are committed to helping young people in Eswatini because unemployment is a big issue in any economy, contributing to poverty and inequality. Young people, including women and people with disabilities, must be trained and professionally developed in such a way that they can contribute to the growth and sustainability of Eswatini,” he said.
The training of the new artisans is part of the joint EU-ITC project ‘Eswatini: Promoting growth through competitive alliances,’ which seeks to boost jobs, business and artisan skills in the country and support small enterprises. It also seeks to promote export-led growth, especially through the full utilization of the Southern African Development Community-European Union Economic Partnership Agreement (SADC-EU EPA).
