Speaker 1: Just before I went off on leave, one of our
Speaker 1: listeners tipped me off about an exciting new program that
Speaker 1: is seeking to tap into South Africa's very rich tradition
Speaker 1: of artisanal craftsmanship and also to create employment opportunities for
Speaker 1: unemployed youth. The concept is Craft School South Africa and
Speaker 1: it envisages a series of campuses around the country where
Speaker 1: learners can be trained in practical crafting skills as well
Speaker 1: as softer skills if you like, emotional intelligence, business management,
Speaker 1: the kind of tools that will help them to make
Speaker 1: a living after they graduate. And I want to say
Speaker 1: thank you to our listener Andre for alerting us to
Speaker 1: this concept and the fact that it is in its
Speaker 1: fledgling stages. It's my huge pleasure to have with us
Speaker 1: today the founder of Craft Schools South Africa, Justin van Brada,
Speaker 1: who is joining us via zoom. If the name is familiar,
Speaker 1: you are obviously a designed guru of some sorts. You'll know.
Speaker 1: Justin is a highly acclaimed interior and furniture designer with
Speaker 1: over twenty five years experience in the design industry. He's
Speaker 1: worked both in South Africa and in London. He's been
Speaker 1: involved in craft based startups before but this concept is
Speaker 1: on a whole different level, and it's a great pleasure
Speaker 1: to have Justin with us to tell us more about
Speaker 1: the vision and where it stemmed from. Justin from Brudau,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Cape Talk.
Speaker 2: Thanks Papa, Thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure. Just before we talk about the vision
Speaker 1: for a craft school, let's just talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about your own journey, Justin. The calling to a life
Speaker 1: in design and making and creating beautiful things, is that
Speaker 1: something that sort of goes back as far as you
Speaker 1: can remember. Tell us a about your own journey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a route I followed when I studied after school.
Speaker 3: I went to Stellenbosch and started with law and then
Speaker 3: dropped that, and then moved economics and dropped that, and
Speaker 3: I ended up studying politics and English, and.
Speaker 2: After that I went to.
Speaker 3: Design time It's Good of interior design and kept on
Speaker 3: which pretty much changed my life and the whole trajectory
Speaker 3: of it. It was fun by a woman called Joland
Speaker 3: Mitten who serves on the board of the Craft School now,
Speaker 3: and he's one of those women who runs a very consistent, nurturing,
Speaker 3: rigorous program and it trained me to being then trained
Speaker 3: me to persevere, I think, to finish things, but also
Speaker 3: to understand about the balance of nurturing and hard work.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of you know, listen to your story,
Speaker 3: be heard, now, sit down and do the work. Is
Speaker 3: the sort of ethos there which is amazing, and that
Speaker 3: it really did guide the course of my life, right
Speaker 3: And I then went to London on a kind of
Speaker 3: a gap year that that's kind of never never ended.
Speaker 3: I ended up being in the UK for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, justin obviously making a name for yourself with
Speaker 1: your own design work. But that that what you've just
Speaker 1: said about the ethos, that that combination of the nurturing,
Speaker 1: the recognition of the emotional needs and the person and
Speaker 1: their aspirations, but combined with the realities of what is
Speaker 1: needed to succeed, that perseverance, the willingness to hard work.
Speaker 1: I know that those are core to what you envisage
Speaker 1: for the craft school concept as well. But you're also
Speaker 1: incredibly passionate about the importance of preserving traditional craft skills.
Speaker 1: Perhaps before we say anymore, we should try and more
Speaker 1: precisely define what you mean by craftsmanship and craft skills.
Speaker 1: Because some people sort of write that offer as oh,
Speaker 1: well that's netting or doing beadwork or something to pass
Speaker 1: the time as a hobby. You've got a much broader
Speaker 1: sense of the concept of craft and how you want
Speaker 1: to apply it in this context, do you want to explain?
Speaker 3: Yes, So it is that whole thing, as you say,
Speaker 3: you know, and it's very unpopular to.
Speaker 2: Go and learn to do.
Speaker 3: What people see as a traditional craft because they remember
Speaker 3: their grandmother are sitting in a staying machine all their lives,
Speaker 3: as opposed to know something sexy. So the sexy crafts
Speaker 3: are like blowing and beautiful ceramics and beautiful leatherwork and
Speaker 3: things like that, whereas crafting is made by hand, and
Speaker 3: there's the wonderful Italian craft institution called homer Faber, which
Speaker 3: is basically man made is the literal translation, and that
Speaker 3: is exactly what it is. And so what we are
Speaker 3: going to be teaching is a series of different crafts.
Speaker 2: That are made by hand.
Speaker 3: And if you look around your home, it is something
Speaker 3: useful that is made beautifully by hand. So it's not
Speaker 3: just your beautiful ceramic vase, but it's your piece of furniture,
Speaker 3: it's your your you're you know, you're if you live
Speaker 3: in an old place, your pipework and your boiler could
Speaker 3: be a handmade item.
Speaker 2: And so so there.
Speaker 3: Is this whole there's this whole education that we're trying
Speaker 3: to bring back of these beautifully made, useful items have
Speaker 3: a value. There's an economic need for them. There is
Speaker 3: an economic need for us to make locally more in
Speaker 3: South Africa, because even for the bigger companies who have
Speaker 3: been importing for years, they've realized that if we're not
Speaker 3: making in this country, we don't have anyone to buy
Speaker 3: anything in this country, and the whole economy comes to standstill.
Speaker 3: So we have to put we have to create jobs
Speaker 3: so that we can create the cycle of purchasing.
Speaker 2: And it's for us and for us. The closing of
Speaker 2: the circle.
Speaker 3: I'm going to the end of the story now, but
Speaker 3: is after these young people graduate in their craft and
Speaker 3: the first four crafts that we're offering at our first year,
Speaker 3: we will end up with a whole full complement of
Speaker 3: twelve different crafts. But our first four crafts are iron work,
Speaker 3: which is literally from boiler making all the way through
Speaker 3: to you know, metal furniture and gates and railings and
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. The second craft is textile, so's weaving, spinning, yarn,
Speaker 3: block printing, text screen printing, all in this traditional manner.
Speaker 3: The third craft is CMT classic CMT. When growing up
Speaker 3: in Cape Town, all the way through wood Circon Assaultier
Speaker 3: of every second shop was a CMT shop in people
Speaker 3: in a sewing machine making beautiful things. Now you can
Speaker 3: hardly get something altered. And the whole idea is to
Speaker 3: is to bring back their whole cat making trim crafters.
Speaker 3: And the root for those crafters, to anyone who might
Speaker 3: be listening, actually is it's not just going and sitting
Speaker 3: at a table and then sewing T shirts for the
Speaker 3: rest of your life. I was recently at TFG and
Speaker 3: the route to employment and opportunity in that industry is
Speaker 3: so vast, but the young people don't know about it.
Speaker 3: So if you study, you've got you've got to know
Speaker 3: how to make something before you can become a garment
Speaker 3: engineer or a textiles engineer or a footwear specialist.
Speaker 2: And that is the starting point. The classic CMT.
Speaker 3: And the fourth craft that we're offering is classic furniture
Speaker 3: making and restoration. Because nobody can fix anything anymore and
Speaker 3: traditional upholstery, and there.
Speaker 2: Is a skills gap for that.
Speaker 3: So we've identified these first fore crafts as our starting
Speaker 3: point and sixty students for our first year, and the
Speaker 3: full complement of students post school is we're looking at
Speaker 3: one hundred about one hundred and twenty students, but we
Speaker 3: want to start our first year with a smaller compliment
Speaker 3: so we can hone our course and just make it,
Speaker 3: make our mistakes in our first year and hone and
Speaker 3: refine our course to then seamless need transition to one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty students. But all of these sixty students,
Speaker 3: our research tells us we'll walk straight into employment. But
Speaker 3: our big goal is to set up a craft center
Speaker 3: adjacent to each school so that we can create this
Speaker 3: new manufacturing base of people where people can order things
Speaker 3: and bring things. We're not a design school, we will be.
Speaker 3: We are training in making beautifully and excellently so that
Speaker 3: people can bring their designs and have things made through
Speaker 3: these craft centers with the crafters as stakeholders. And that
Speaker 3: is the key thing. The crafters are stakeholders in their future,
Speaker 3: and we're setting up these different centers in different locations
Speaker 3: across the country. We can we can we can help
Speaker 3: sustain communities where bigger industries may be pulling out. We're
Speaker 3: busy discussing very early stages with a mining company about
Speaker 3: the closing of minds to create a roadmap for setting
Speaker 3: up schools in these communities as the minds put out,
Speaker 3: so that so that people can stay there and get
Speaker 3: married there, have their children, then their grandparents can know,
Speaker 3: they can know their children, and you can stay in
Speaker 3: the community where you live and you build up this
Speaker 3: wonderful network. And in the same vein, if you've got
Speaker 3: a chart a young man or young woman up in Limpopo,
Speaker 3: for instance, who just doesn't fit in, you can say,
Speaker 3: you know what, We've got a craft center that you
Speaker 3: can go and work out. Be a stakeholder in Cape
Speaker 3: Town or East London or Quasilian style, wherever it might be.
Speaker 3: There's a network that you can create for for people
Speaker 3: to exist and a bigger community.
Speaker 1: That's the end goal anyway, just for the sake of
Speaker 1: anybody who's come into this conversation midway and doesn't know
Speaker 1: who you're listening to. My guest joining us by a
Speaker 1: zoom this afternoon, justin fan Brida an acclaimed interior and
Speaker 1: furniture designer and the founder of a concept called craft
Speaker 1: Schools South Africa. The intention is to open the first
Speaker 1: branch here in Cape Town next year in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: and to keep on growing and expanding throughout the country
Speaker 1: thereafter a focus on crafting skills, on occupational skills that
Speaker 1: can provide a pathway to employment, to self sustainability and
Speaker 1: to a future and hope for young people for whom Justin,
Speaker 1: unfortunately we know hope is dying for many of them.
Speaker 1: There is just the sense of overwhelming hopelessness in so
Speaker 1: many communities when we look at the youth unemployment figures
Speaker 1: in particular. So I love about the story the combination
Speaker 1: of somebody saying I'm prepared to offer you a way
Speaker 1: to make your own future. But it goes hand in
Speaker 1: hand with this wonderful concept of preserving these skills. Justin,
Speaker 1: in the age of mass manufacture, of so much being
Speaker 1: automated and taken over by computers and three D printers,
Speaker 1: let's just talk a little bit about the value of
Speaker 1: holding on to this personal handmade craftsmanship. Obviously, for somebody
Speaker 1: like you who's a designed professional, there's a sense of
Speaker 1: personal pride in the work that makes it important to you.
Speaker 2: But why should we.
Speaker 1: Want to hold on to the handmade, handcrafted when a
Speaker 1: can computer or a three D printer can do things
Speaker 1: quickly and.
Speaker 3: Easily, because they tell the story of our country and
Speaker 3: they tell the story of our lives. Everybody's got something
Speaker 3: that was handed down to them by someone, given to
Speaker 3: them as a gift by somebody, and those things tell
Speaker 3: the story and they are they're the threads that we've
Speaker 3: tapishure of our lives, and they are so important. And
Speaker 3: there is a language which it happens between the brain
Speaker 3: and the hand that cannot be replicated by a computer.
Speaker 3: And I'm not for one moment saying that a three
Speaker 3: A digital printer isn't the most amazing thing, because it is,
Speaker 3: and we hopefully, we hope one day to have one
Speaker 3: in the schools, because they can make components that you
Speaker 3: can then by hand make something bigger, bigger than just
Speaker 3: a component, and they and there is a so and
Speaker 3: it's the same as drawing. When you design something, there's
Speaker 3: a language that happens from your brain and your pencil
Speaker 3: when you sketch that you just can't you can't get
Speaker 3: that on a computer, and and that is an intrinsic value,
Speaker 3: but it's our cultural economy as well. And things made
Speaker 3: by hand are are what people are, what people resonate with,
Speaker 3: there's a there's an emotional resonance and and I think
Speaker 3: that's really important. And where where we haven't invested is
Speaker 3: in our what is known as anti crafts, which is
Speaker 3: the worst word in the world. These handicrafts are have
Speaker 3: no one's invested in them, so people are still making
Speaker 3: what they were making one hundred years ago. And I
Speaker 3: had a wonderful conversation with a woman in India who
Speaker 3: runs a huge organization who invest in handicrafts, and their
Speaker 3: help craft is you know, if you got a broken loom,
Speaker 3: they may finance getting being fixed or whatever. But they
Speaker 3: and she said that the biggest challenge they have is
Speaker 3: because they don't do any training. There's no design input,
Speaker 3: and so people are still making what they were making before.
Speaker 3: And so you know, nobody wants the carved giraffe anymore,
Speaker 3: you know, people who moved on from that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And so what we're hopefully are going.
Speaker 3: To create is an opening in a marketplace of people
Speaker 3: looking for something in by hand. That and they can
Speaker 3: bring their designs and have them made at the school,
Speaker 3: and they can put their ideas and the ideas bounce
Speaker 3: off one another.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really really important.
Speaker 3: But what you were saying about hopelessness, Pippa is is is.
Speaker 2: What really struck me.
Speaker 3: We went two weeks ago to a an open day
Speaker 3: at a school and I Deserved school in the in
Speaker 3: Kpe town and it was their state appointed open day.
Speaker 3: This was the day where we career's day we would
Speaker 3: go and we would like jos along and put up
Speaker 3: our table and it was our first open day, so
Speaker 3: we all off. We went with our bags of physicism,
Speaker 3: lollipops and our big signs, and off we went and
Speaker 3: we nearly had a swim bed.
Speaker 2: Was the day.
Speaker 3: It was raining so badly with that storm. And we
Speaker 3: got there and there was this hall full of kids
Speaker 3: sixteen to eighteen, grade ten, twelve, and three organizations turned
Speaker 3: up with the paramedics, the fire truck.
Speaker 2: And us, and I thought, my.
Speaker 3: Goodness, where are all the people who say they give
Speaker 3: a dad? And I was actually quite outraged about it
Speaker 3: because I was so disappointed for these kids. And the
Speaker 3: questions that we were asked were really bright, intelligent, exciting
Speaker 3: questions about you know, so if we come here, can
Speaker 3: we make our own business and how would we get
Speaker 3: the materials? What the kids are really excited about being
Speaker 3: exposed to something particularly creative, and that is the one
Speaker 3: thing that don't offer our kids in our unserved communities,
Speaker 3: you know, core centers of the rage at the moment,
Speaker 3: but no one is offering our creative kids anything. And
Speaker 3: there's a huge amount of money going into early learning
Speaker 3: development because the best thing you can do for a
Speaker 3: young person is teaching them and something out before their
Speaker 3: turn ten. And I totally get that, but there is
Speaker 3: a whole segment of our society and we have therefore
Speaker 3: changed our initial age qualifications.
Speaker 2: We're now accepting our applications between sixteen and.
Speaker 3: Twenty five for the school because these kids, they were
Speaker 3: kind of forgotten, and the creative kids particularly because they're
Speaker 3: often the dyslexic and the dyspractic and the ones that
Speaker 3: really struggle at school. And so we're non fee paying.
Speaker 3: We're a nonprofit, it's an NPC. It's registered as a
Speaker 3: cape Craft school because that's how.
Speaker 2: We were going to start.
Speaker 3: But it is a non fee paying school and it
Speaker 3: costs ninety thousand rand to put a child through this
Speaker 3: program for a year and it's expensive because to get
Speaker 3: a child, which we have to pay for is part
Speaker 3: of the thing. From their home to the school and
Speaker 3: back every day costs twenty one thousand round a year.
Speaker 2: Two you cannot fee. You cannot educate a hungry child.
Speaker 3: So each child will arrive at school and be given
Speaker 3: a breakfast snack and they would eive at the end
Speaker 3: of the day with an evening snack. Sometimes take two
Speaker 3: hours on the bus to get home or the train,
Speaker 3: and they have something to it and we will also
Speaker 3: we have this hidden curriculum which is all about their welfare,
Speaker 3: and they will cook together and learn to cook, and
Speaker 3: they will create meals for one another as a.
Speaker 2: Whole big lunchtime program.
Speaker 3: And they will also have counseling and numerously in literacy
Speaker 3: we'll have to bring that up to speed if that's lacking,
Speaker 3: and social counseling, one on one, group therapy, counseling. We
Speaker 3: want to turn out a student body that are engaged
Speaker 3: young South Africans who are excited about life. And because
Speaker 3: it's a free school, we have to counter the whole
Speaker 3: freeness of things.
Speaker 2: So we are making community a huge part of what
Speaker 2: we do. So it's about turning our a student body
Speaker 2: that understands.
Speaker 3: The communities about what you put in and what you
Speaker 3: take out, so they will immediately volunteer things, go back
Speaker 3: to the charities where they were because we are sourcing
Speaker 3: a lot of our students through charities that nurture young people,
Speaker 3: and they will go back in their holidays and volunteer
Speaker 3: back at those charities. What the events those charities throw,
Speaker 3: and that is a whole part of appoints that they're
Speaker 3: going to earn during the school time.
Speaker 1: Ninety thousand round per child per year. There's no shortage
Speaker 1: of I suspect, willing applicants and pool of potential candidates.
Speaker 1: Where are you getting the funding to fund that ninety
Speaker 1: thousand round per child per year?
Speaker 2: Well, we are a major fundraising drive at the moment.
Speaker 3: Have I initially thought that I would have to raise
Speaker 3: the money internationally having been away for twenty five years,
Speaker 3: I thought that I would probably raise the money internationally,
Speaker 3: But there has been a huge, huge amount of good
Speaker 3: will in South Africa. Momentum Health has offered their private
Speaker 3: healthcare program called Health for Me to all of to
Speaker 3: all of our students, which is amazing, And there are
Speaker 3: various foundations the private sector, and finally I've knocked down
Speaker 3: that some doors in the sector and conversations are beginning
Speaker 3: to activate their ecosystems to help. Because we need food
Speaker 3: and we need transport, we need a campus and we
Speaker 3: need everything basically because we don't have anything. But we've
Speaker 3: got a lot of support, but fundraising. It took a
Speaker 3: lot of time to get our applications right, to get
Speaker 3: our eighteen A, our state certificates saying that we are
Speaker 3: a charity, and all our registrations the Department of Social Development,
Speaker 3: so those were all in place by May, and so
Speaker 3: we've been using June, July and the rest of the
Speaker 3: year to complete the conversations that we started with a
Speaker 3: number of organizations to gain the funding. But we are
Speaker 3: in fundraising drive and we've got all different routes to
Speaker 3: funding and they're all on our website.
Speaker 1: Fantastic right just to finish our conversation with Justin von Brida,
Speaker 1: the founder of Craft Schools South Africa. Before the break,
Speaker 1: we were hearing the vision of beginning with one campus
Speaker 1: here in Cape and ultimately hopefully expanding to have centers
Speaker 1: all over the country where learners will be able to
Speaker 1: be skilled with crafting skills, the likes of textile weaving,
Speaker 1: furniture making, iron work, progressing in later years onto carving
Speaker 1: and sculpture, leather work, ceramics, speedwork, jewelry, glass blowing and
Speaker 1: the like, and the whole package that goes with that
Speaker 1: of ensuring that they're given the best possible chance of success,
Speaker 1: meaning that it's not just about offering them a place
Speaker 1: at the school. It's supporting with transport to and from school,
Speaker 1: with nutrition at school, with life skills, etc. Justin you
Speaker 1: were saying beforehand, obviously you're still in the fundraising process
Speaker 1: and you haven't yet identified an actual physical venue. So
Speaker 1: how confident are you that you'll be able to open
Speaker 1: that first branch in twenty twenty six in Cape Town.
Speaker 1: Is it sort of a big dream that's still a
Speaker 1: far way off or do you feel certain that it
Speaker 1: will happen?
Speaker 2: There are no certainties, I don't think, KIPA. But we
Speaker 2: did change.
Speaker 3: We did change the name from Kraft from Cape Craft
Speaker 3: School to Craft School South Africa.
Speaker 2: And because we have been after already.
Speaker 3: A campus in Johannesburg in working very closely with Josie
Speaker 3: and my Josie who are doing credible work up there.
Speaker 3: And we've been offered a building in the IDAs Valley
Speaker 3: in Stellenbosch and it was and so we were we
Speaker 3: were pretty certain that we could pivot to Stellenbosch for
Speaker 3: our first school. However, after going to that career's day
Speaker 3: in last two Wednesday or two two weeks ago, I'm
Speaker 3: pretty determined that we were loping Ko because they're students
Speaker 3: who are relying on us. There are students who who
Speaker 3: are so excited about what they could be doing. And
Speaker 3: when I asked the principal what they do what their
Speaker 3: kids do after the trick, he goes.
Speaker 2: Well, now go back into the community.
Speaker 3: Some of them can raise the money to go to
Speaker 3: Taik Crivate School and do something, but there's just no opportunity.
Speaker 3: And so I'm I was with Dawn Plumber, one of
Speaker 3: our board members who running operations of the of the
Speaker 3: of the Foundation, and I looked at her, I said,
Speaker 3: we've got to open the school in Cape Town. So
Speaker 3: we've got a we have it, we have it. We
Speaker 3: have an evening reception happening in in August. We've had
Speaker 3: a lot of conversations. I mean, having done Hannesburg a
Speaker 3: few times and there are a lot of supportive people
Speaker 3: who are activating networks. And now the we're having I'm
Speaker 3: having conversations with west Grow and we have identified a
Speaker 3: building and we are negotiating a lease, but it is
Speaker 3: a commercial lease and it's expensive, and with the money
Speaker 3: that we spend on that, we could educate another fifteen kids.
Speaker 3: And I just can't believe that there isn't a building
Speaker 3: somewhere in Cape Town that that we could we could
Speaker 3: we could move into at a kind of a CSI
Speaker 3: range or something, because it's a great thing, the school,
Speaker 3: and it was for me changed my whole life. I mean,
Speaker 3: I moved back to Cape On for twenty five years.
Speaker 3: It's quite a quite a thing, and it is for me,
Speaker 3: it was a star sort of too bright not follow,
Speaker 3: but it's a The children's reaction to.
Speaker 2: This opportunity is so exciting to see.
Speaker 3: And and yeah, we'll open the second February next year.
Speaker 2: We open, Yes, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So then the final question justin I've got a
Speaker 1: couple of people saying, you know, I'm involved in this
Speaker 1: industry or I'd like to help or find out how
Speaker 1: to get involved. If somebody listening to this would like
Speaker 1: to be part of the story, or can perhaps connect
Speaker 1: you with that Unicorn property you're looking for, or would
Speaker 1: like to find out more about the concept, what's the
Speaker 1: best way to connect with you?
Speaker 2: They can email us.
Speaker 3: The address is on the website and where craft School
Speaker 3: South Africa dot com.
Speaker 1: Craft School South Africa dot com is the website to
Speaker 1: visit and just reach out by that well. All the
Speaker 1: best to you, justin from Bernard. Great to have you
Speaker 1: on the show today and I hope we have a
Speaker 1: follow up conversation in January next year, weeks ahead of
Speaker 1: your official opening.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Papa, thanks for all your helping.
Speaker 1: All the best to you, Cool, thanks for your time.
Speaker 1: Just Ston van Breda