RISA CHARITABLE TRUST
email:info@risafund.org
web: www.risafund.org
TEL: 774.276.0202
9120 173rd Ave SE
Snohomish, WA 98290 USA
In 2001, Maggie Mogwera created Abangane Vukuzenzele to provide employment and a sense of community to physically handicapped women in the township of Khayelitsha, located just outside of Cape Town.
Abangane trains its members to make shoes, beading and produce leather belts. With these skills the women are able to make a living selling their products to the local community as well as to a growing tourist market.
In December of 2005, Abangane applied to RISA for a grant that would help them develop marketing and expansion plans for their business. RISA's grant of $1,800 helped Abangane purchase much-needed machinery essential to meeting the production demands of the business. RISA's grant also allowed Abangane, to hire Ilitha LeThemba, a local, woman-owned strategic consulting firm. Ilitha helped the young business develop the marketing expansion plan needed to access new markets and expand its product line of leather goods.
One of Ilitha's key recommendations recently implemented by Abangane was to move the business, and all of its physically handicapped employees, into a wheelchair-accessible workshop and retail space. This new factory has not only made producing Abangane's custom-made leather shoes and belts more efficient, the partnership with the group of blind artisans who share this space will give Abangane Vukuzenzele Leatherworks access to the much sought after tourist retail market in the township of Khayelitsha
Thanks to the advice of the Ilitha LeThemba consultant paid for by RISA's grant Abangane is creating the most productive environment possible for its wheelchair-bound employees, all of whom would be unemployed and living in poverty were it not for the jobs offered by Mrs. Mogwera and her business.