A beader's story: Thobile

Thobile Ndlovu is a 43 year old woman who beads as part of the Woza Moya income generation project at the Hillcrest AIDS Centre. She has two daughters, aged 24 and16 years, and she helps care for three grandchildren, of the ages 8, 5 and 2 years. She came to care for the grandchildren when her eldest daughter’s boyfriend passed away. The other grandchildren’s fathers aren’t around either so she cares for them as well.

In 2005, Thobile came to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre because she was very sick (she says that she almost died). There, she met beaders who taught her to bead. Since she started beading, she has been making Little Travellers. She can make a Little Traveller in 30 minutes – hers are beautiful ballerinas.

To Thobile, making Little Travellers is especially meaningful because it makes her feel that she is the creator of beautiful things. Sometimes she thinks of the Little Travellers as living humans that she is able to bring to life.

Thobile says that beading has brought the biggest changes in her life because she lost her job when she fell ill. The money from beading gives her an income and has given her her life back. She’s now able to do things that she couldn’t do before. Thobile depends greatly on Little Traveller orders for her income so she can meet all the expenses for that month. Because of the dolls, she is able to pay school fees for her grandchildren.

On average, beading has brought Thobile R300 (~$50 CDN) per week; most of this is from making Little Travellers which are then sold around the world. In fact, she was recently able to build another room in her house, and put cupboards in the kitchen!

For fun, Thobile likes to do what she does best: dancing!