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Creative craft & design hothouse revs up local corporate gift marketA new initiative in the Cape Town CBD's East City precinct will provide a link between South Africa's formal and informal economies, giving corporate gift buyers access to local handmade products and providing the country's many talented crafters with an entrane to this major niche market. GIFT, an initiative of the Cape Craft & Design Institute (CCDI) and the Old Mutual Foundation (OMF), will bring the makers and this market together by bridging communication and interaction, facilitating design, managing economies of scale and ensuring the timely and efficient fulfilment of orders. GIFT will not only direct the significant revenue from corporate gifting to the mostly informal and under-resourced micro-businesses, but also aims to also replace the dominant mass-produced, imported corporate gifts with locally hand-crafted ones. Importantly, GIFT underscores an increasing conviction in the private and public sectors that the creative industries - design, craft, film, music and so on - can make a valuable contribution to income generation, job creation and sustainable economic development. Rose Reddy, GM of GIFT, says communication between corporate buyers and craft producers has until now been a major obstacle to trade, and has often led to buyers sourcing elsewhere. "Craft producers, often based in townships or remote rural areas, have limited logistical know-how and support and corporate gift buyers are understandably concerned about their orders being fulfilled. This creates an impasse, where local crafters are unable to get access to a lucrative market and buyers can't access this wealth of BBBEE compliant suppliers. Buyers recognise the value of locally produced crafts, but they lack the time and resources to ensure fulfilment."? Reddy says GIFT will break this logjam by providing crafters with logistical support and access to product development and training while offering buyers an efficient, reliable point of contact through which bespoke gifting solutions can be developed, ordered and delivered on time and to specification. The GIFT showroom can also provide a last-minute solution with ready-made gift items off-the-shelf. As a market access programme, GIFT will be able to draw on other CCDI programmes: Its Product Development Clinic and AMTS Fabrication Laboratory is on tap to support product development and bespoke solutions. Its Enterprise Development programme - incorporating skills development and a business mentoring service - is available to support the development of craft entrepreneurs. OMF head Kate Miszewski says:
"As anyone involved in corporate social investment
work knows, it's simply not enough to provide skills training; for those skills
to change lives we also need to open markets to those who've been trained.
Achieving that requires partnerships and we found a partner in CCDI." Erica Elk, CCDI's Executive Director, adds that the research behind the establishment of GIFT indicated huge potential for craft items as a corporate gifting solution, particularly in the conference industry and the government sector: "There is a window of opportunity in South Africa - and probably globally too - where public and private sector companies are increasingly seeking sustainable ways to 'give back' to communities. GIFT provides companies with a socially responsible gifting solution that will help them meet CSI and BBBEE targets while at the same time supporting the development of indigenous design and the creative and social capital of South Africa. And it's not charity - the products are beautiful and hold their own in the marketplace." Stakeholder information The CCDI was launched in 2001 as a joint initiative of the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Its mandate is to support the sustainability of the craft sector in Western Cape, which it does through collaboration, communication, training, product development & market access. The collaboration between the OMF and the CCDI began with a Master Crafter training programme, funded and developed by the Old Mutual Foundation, with a core group of 18 SA master crafters, the results of which were exhibited at Spier Wine Estate in the "Afro Deco: Living in our Global World" exhibition (Nov - Feb 2007). Some of the work is part of a permanent Spier Art Room Project installation. The CCDI has a database of 850 craft enterprises, 360 retail outlets, 200 service providers and 800 other stakeholders around South Africa. Its website www.capecraftanddesign.org.za and exhibitions showcase a variety of locally produced products and host monthly forums for crafters. Alerts are issued by email, fax or SMS. The website has already enabled local crafters to initiate business locally and in Australia, Canada, the US and the UK. Old Mutual Foundation: Over the past four years, the Old Mutual Foundation has built up sound, innovative initiatives within the four focus areas: local economic development, education, HIV/AIDS and staff volunteerism. In seeking out new ways to approach social development, it aims to:
Marjorie
Naidoo
Rose
Reddy
Benna
van der Merwe
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