Every August, South Africa talks about women. The adverts turn pink, the panels get booked, and the shops fill up with Women's Day gifts. We are not going to pretend we sit above that, because we sell things too. But at Wild Mongoo, August is not a campaign we switch on. It is simply the month the rest of the country notices what our workshop in George has been doing for the other eleven.
In July we introduced you to the women who make everything we sell. This time we want to tell you the part a gift guide never quite gets to: what a steady job actually changed for them. That is the difference between a nice sentiment and an outcome you can bank.
From vulnerability to ability, literally
Right outside the workshop there is a hand-painted signpost. Three arrows. Wild Mongoo. Vulnerability. Ability. It is the least subtle thing we own, and we would not change a word of it, because it is the whole business written on three planks of pink wood.
Wild Mongoo exists so that women facing genuinely hard circumstances can find real work, learn a real skill, and walk the distance from vulnerability to independence. Not a hamper in December. Not a once-off donation with a photograph attached. A job, on a Tuesday, that is still there on Wednesday.
The signpost is not decoration. It is the job description.
Her name is on the back of the card
Here is the detail most people miss until they are holding one.
Pick up a pair of our earrings or an angel wing necklace, and turn the card over. There is a photograph and a name. Wildly made by Xoliswa. Hi, I'm Zenande. Flourish and Bloom.
That is not a marketing flourish we bolted on afterwards. It is the entire point. The woman who made that piece has her face on it, and she knows exactly where it is going. There are not many jobs in this country where the person who made the thing is named on the thing.
Xoliswa makes the Flourish and Bloom petal earrings. Every set leaves the workshop with her name and her face on the card, which is exactly how we think it should work.
Zenande introduces herself on her own cards. Empowering women in Africa is printed on the back of each one, which is a promise we would rather be held to than simply talk about.
What a steady income actually changes
We asked what changed, and almost nobody led with the money. They led with what the money made possible.
Rent that does not have to be negotiated every month. School shoes bought in January instead of March. A bank account in her own name. The ability to plan further ahead than Friday. Small, unglamorous things, which is precisely why they matter.
The first thing that changes is not your bank balance. It is your posture.
There is a second thing a job does, and it is harder to fit on a poster. It gives you people. The workshop is loud. There is a radio on, there is teasing, there are birthdays and there is someone who notices when you are quiet. For a woman who arrived isolated, a room full of people who expect to see her on Monday is not a small thing at all.
If you buy one thing
I am Strong Tumbler
If one item sums up the room it came from, it is this one. It goes to work, to gym and to the school run, and it says the thing out loud so she does not have to.
R249.00
Shop the tumblerChoosing Women's Day gifts that do something
Let us be honest: a great many Women's Day gifts are a candle and a card. There is nothing wrong with a candle. But if you would like the money to land somewhere useful on its way to being a gift, here is the simple version of how ours works.
One hundred percent of our proceeds fund the training, wages and support of the women in our George workshop. Not a slice of profit once everything else has been paid. All of it. Which means a R49 bracelet is not a token gesture, it is a genuine shift in somebody's week.
Beaded by hand, printed by hand, packed by hand. All of it in George.
The pieces we would send this August
A short list, spanning a bracelet you can post in an envelope to a laptop bag she will carry for years. Every one of them handmade in George.
One last thing
If you are in George, come and see it. The shop is pink, you cannot miss it, and the women who made everything on the shelves are usually somewhere in the building. If you are not, everything travels.
Happy Women's Month from all of us. Same workshop, same women, same signpost. We just get the applause this month.
