Crafts Training – Imbali Visual Literacy Project

THE NEED

South Africa has one of the highest levels of youth unemployment in the world. According to recent Stats SA figures (http://www.statssa.gov.za/), 55% of our working age population is under the age of 35 – of which 37.5% are unemployed. Jobs in the formal sector are scarce. Training people in skills they can use to create their own small businesses is thus critically important.

Imbali’s crafts training programme works with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to help them develop such skills – specifically, those needed to create and run a crafts business. The programme also enables them to give back to their communities through our community outreach initiatives.

Imbali’s two-year crafts training course

The Imbali crafts training programme is a two-year, full-time subsidised course run from our training studios in Newtown. Focusing on a range of textiles and ceramics skills, the course takes crafters from a basic level where they are highly supported to the point where they can develop their own products and designs, and start their own craft enterprises.

From the first year of training, students are able to sell the products they make through the Imbali shop in Museum Africa, enabling them to generate a small income during their studies. On graduating, individuals can support themselves and their families through their craftwork. Along with craft and design skills, students are also taught business and entrepreneurial skills, as well as a range of life skills.

The second year of training is essentially an incubation year, during which participants are supported as they start their own businesses. They are given support in product and business development, and are included on incubator work projects to gain experience in production and the crafts business environment. They also attend a facilitators’ training programme, after which they start working with groups of vulnerable people in their communities, teaching crafts and creative arts. Student-run community outreach projects bring art, craft and design to an extremely diverse audience, including many communities outside metropolitan areas. This is Imbali’s Community Outreach Programme.

Approximately 40 young crafters attend the two-year training programme each year. All tools, materials and tuition are subsidised, so we constantly seek funding from government, corporate and private donors to keep the programme going.

Our crafts training objectives

To make high quality, accredited crafts training and business and marketing training accessible to the unemployed, women and youth at risk.
Develop craftspeople and designers who can set up sustainable, long-term, income-generating work.
Provide access to outlets for sustainable marketing and selling.
Develop self-confidence and a sense of individual worth, leading towards self-reliance through skills acquisition.
Facilitate in developing creative imagination, leading to original South African design.
Share equipment and resources in order to run economically viable workshops while establishing young careers.
Develop new skills and products through a creative and cultural skills exchange with like-minded projects such as: the Keiskamma Art Project in the Eastern Cape http://www.keiskamma.org/ and the Madi A Thavha Mountain Lodge and Craft/Art Centre in Limpopo https://madiathavha.com/craftart
Encourage and support superb craftsmanship.
Introduce students to a wide range of traditional art and craft forms, and instil an awareness and appreciation of local history, culture and heritage.
Build craft-teaching capacity and share skills with children and the elderly in the community.
Promote art and craft forms that are increasingly unsupported (e.g. textiles and ceramics, which are increasingly disappearing from institutions).

Other crafts training

Imbali can also tailor-make training for crafters in different contexts. These short courses can focus on particular craft skills, such as:

Pattern-making and sewing
Patchwork
Fabric design and printing (both block printing and screen printing)
Batik
Fabric dyeing
Weaving
Applique and embroidery
Drawing
Jewellery-making

Alternatively, short programmes can focus on general creativity, innovation and product development. This option is suitable for crafters with existing skills, who need inspiration to help them take their product design to the next level.

Endorsements of Imbali crafts training

‘Imbali’s work in their three-year Crafts Training Programme is a sustained investment into the development of skilled creative thinkers and makers, and the evidence is amply there in the extraordinary beauty of the resulting products. I have in mind specifically the printed textiles which are bold, risky, thoughtful and varied as well as being well finished and presented for market. This is a well-established organisation, with a sustained commitment to practice and production, and I endorse its work fully and without hesitation.’

‘As a retailer of Imbali products the Origins Centre Shop can attest to the success of the Imbali crafts training programme. Not only do students learn the technical skills of screen printing, block printing, embroidery and sewing, they also learn how to design products tailored to the brief of a client such as the Origins Centre Shop.’

‘I have been struck, over many years, by the consistent wholistic approach Imbali takes to the development of creative practice. Any sustainable craft development necessarily needs to take into account the teaching and acquisition of technical skills but crucially, the development of creative practice must unfold as part and parcel of the training. When creativity is nurtured, taught and thought about with learners, it helps the learner or apprentice to strengthen capacity to keep on going; to keep on developing new variations of products, to keep on innovating. For me, the combination of technical skills and intellectual or creative thought about craft is a mind-set that distinguishes Imbali and its training programmes in the craft development domain.’