This month's issue

Subscribe to Colored Stone!
Contact Customer Service

Sign up for the Free Colored Stone Gem Mail Newsletter!

The Vukani-Ubuntu jewelry school helps poor South Africans develop their inner talents. By Terri Haag

A beaming Demos Takoulas enters the restaurant like a force of nature — a nice tornado, perhaps — highly energetic, but clearly benign. It’s immediately apparent how Takoulas has managed to start one of South Africa’s most successful community development programs: He is never at rest.

Takoulas has always been a maverick, even by Greek standards. During the bad old apartheid days, he (a white man) ran a popular nightclub called Cherry’s in Soshanguve, one of the all-black townships, an enterprise that surely strained the edges of legality according to the racist apartheid government of the time. After that, he lectured in criminology at the University of South Africa. Somewhere in between, he created a program to train young black children and published the works of several black South African poets out of his own pocket.

His community development work began in earnest when he started Academy International, a computer literacy training institute, in 1996. After this was successful — and based on the input of a jeweler friend — Takoulas dug up serious sponsors, and Vukani-Ubuntu Community Development Projects was incorporated in 1998. The first actual training facility opened in 1999 in Atteridgeville, a township near Pretoria. Two years later, the Galeshewe lapidary training program opened in Kimberly. And in 2002, Takoulas and his dedicated team established three more development projects, the impressive Umjindi Jewellery Project, with its upscale espresso bar, gift shop, and African Art Gallery in Barberton; the Vukani Skills Lab, which operates from the Academy International facilities in Pretoria; and the Atteridgeville Tourism Project.

An amethyst and gold bracelet (above) and a set of garnet and gold earrings (above, left), both made using chain mail techniques by Alison Evans. A bracelet (top of page) from designer Andrew Lamb featuring a ruby set in 18K gold with gold and silver twisted wire loops. Photos courtesy Vukani-Ubuntu.

All told, Vukani-Ubuntu is currently training over 120 black students and employs over three dozen. Their graduates have had stunning successes: Six graduates have opened their own businesses, one graduate has started three other community-based jewelry training projects, and all but a few graduates are currently employed in the industry. Over 50 trained jewelers are now earning a living thanks to Vukani-Ubuntu. Not bad for an NGO still in its infancy.

I had come to the restaurant from the Vukani-Ubuntu training center in Atteridgeville, outside Pretoria. It is situated in an “informal settlement” — the new, accepted term for the townships that black South Africans were restricted to in the apartheid era — albeit at the extremely prosperous end of it. All I saw were neat brick homes with flower beds, which belonged to lecturers at Atteridgeville College. I was assured that farther along it was not nearly so pretty.

After six years in South Africa myself, I knew only too well what it looked like further along. The poverty in most South African townships is indescribable. In the worst areas, the houses are densely packed together and created from odds and ends of scavenged wood, cardboard boxes, and plastic bags. In the best — Atteridgeville aside — they are still dauntingly poor.

ABOVE: Jewelry created by Vukani-Ubuntu students. TOP: Jewelry in the making by design teacher Credia Mamabolo. Photos by Terri Haag.

Opportunities for any kind of employment are generally in short supply and often restricted to the handyman/gardener/housekeeper niches traditionally given to the poor and uneducated of every country. Unfortunately, even in these more enlightened times, the tendency of many is to assume that this is the best the residents can do. This prejudice is why the Vukani-Ubuntu initiative is so extraordinary in every way. Takoulas, Lourens Mare, Fana Maseko, and the other dedicated Vukani-Ubuntu team members were completely undeterred by living conditions, preconceived notions, lack of funds, or any other obstacle between themselves and the creation of a cadre of successful future jewelers.

One of these future jewelers is an articulate 23-year-old named Bongani Moledi, who hails from Soweto, the former home of Nelson Mandela. Moledi, now in his final year of the three-year program, first saw a brochure advertising the Vukani-Ubuntu project while he was attending a Teknikon, or junior college, in Johannesburg.

“I always liked craft work, but until I came here I thought jewelry like this was all machine-made. I had no idea that someone like me could make it from scratch. Now I create my own designs in metals, stone, wood, even Perspex, and I have several clients who give me custom orders,” he says.

“Just being in the program has given me great insight and access to places I would never have been able to go, like conferences and exhibitions,” he continues. “Last year, I got to attend a Department of Minerals conference and see how ancient African jewelers worked. Now I’m interested in fusion. I want to cause a ‘rotation’ and bring standard elements of jewelry design as well as standard elements of African culture into new ones and create futuristic visions.” As he speaks, Moledi polishes a piece he’s just finished.

Matome Lephale, another talented third-year student, is sitting beside Bongani, putting the finishing touches on an order. “I taught myself basic jewelry-making at home,” says the 27-year-old Lephale. “I was making earrings and other things out of brass tubing, bending it and fashioning inexpensive pieces to sell, but I never thought I could make jewelry like this.” He gestures to his bench and a special order of hand-crafted wedding rings for a friend.

In the office, Jack Maponya, one of the teachers, was enjoying lunch. Maponya studied jewelry design for three years at the Pretoria Teknikon, then worked for a jewelry manufacturing company for nearly three years in the Mpopo Province. There, he was an ‘all-rounder,’ responsible for what sounds like just about everything: taking orders, translating those orders to practical specifications, managing the production line, and insuring that everything came off according to specs.

“I always wanted to be an artist,” he says. “I love working with my hands. I’ve been the practical trainer here at Vukani for four months now, and it’s been challenging. I have to try to give students the skills they need to work in industry, but you know — everybody’s different. Some are slow, some are fast, and they all require patience. I need to get to know the students, so I also know their strengths and weaknesses.”

ABOVE: Design instructor Credia Mamabolo works on her own jewelry. TOP: Matome Lephale works on a special order. Photos by Terri Haag.

To get into the Vukani-Ubuntu program, an applicant must have completed a minimum of Standard Eight, the equivalent of grade 10 in the United States, and a maximum of Standard Ten, the equivalent of grade 12. They must also pass a selection test that includes drawing ability, cutting a plate of metal following a template, and the ability to follow instructions and make accurate measurements. If they are accepted, they pay a tuition of 1,000 rand (US$167). After that, Vukani supplies everything: tools, materials, workshops, teachers. The classes are very small — from four to six students in each tier — and the instruction is highly personalized.

Since its inception in 1999, over 90 percent of the graduates have been employed. And the word is getting out: One company recently opened a jewelry shop at the airport and hired five Vukani graduates in one go.

The project has attracted international attention.

Vukani-Ubuntu, with funding provided by African Pioneer Mining, recently hosted the London-South Africa (LOSA) Gold Jewels Workshop, wherein six top London jewelry designers visited the Umjindi project in order to hold workshops and to interact with Vukani students and staff. The results were amazing for students and designers alike. Sally Moore, a Scottish designer, has remained in South Africa and is dedicating her time to continuing the workshop and training of young local jewelers.

Other essential partnerships within the South African retail and mining communities have helped in these transformations. Charles Grieg Jewellers has facilitated the sale of over 700,000 rand ($116,700) worth of gold jewelry from the LOSA workshops. Other corporate sponsors such as De Beers Corp., Anglo Gold, Metallon Corp., and others have all contributed to the success of the projects. Nor is local government holding back: The Barberton project has been supported by the Mpumalanga Economic Development Fund, the Mpumalanga Department of Finance and Economic Affairs, and the Umjindi Municipality, all of which have contributed to the tune of well over 4 million rand ($670,000), an enormous sum.

Nor are Takoulas and his team planning to rest on their laurels. Similar projects are planned for Polokwane, Soweto, Cape Town, and Johannesburg. It’s just a matter of finding sponsors — and 30 seconds to breathe and maybe drink an ouzo or two.

In all, Vukani-Ubuntu more than lives up to its name, which in Xhosa (the language of the black South Africans of Pretoria) means “waking up a sense of humanity” — waking up a spirit of sharing and caring for each other.

READ MORE: The big picture of South Africa's jewelry market.

March/April 2005 • Style: Waking up in the Townships • Sources: Lost in Translation • Reader's Choice Award 2005 • News & Updates • In This Issue