AS Berea schools showed their support for textile recycling and disability empowerment organisation, Clothes to Good, Berea Mail recently sat down to chat with the organisation to find out more about their work.
Founder and managing director for the organisation, Jesse Naidoo, an engineer with 20 years of experience in telecommunication, was later joined by occupational therapist Tammy Greyling in the Clothes to Good mission to tackle clothing waste and poverty.
“Our mission is threefold: to exit people from poverty, to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities and to care for the environment by diverting textile waste from landfill,” explained Greyling.
“For us to divert clothes from landfill, we are guided by the European Union waste hierarchy. June 1 marked 12 years that we have been doing this,” added Naidoo.
While Clothes to Good is involved in many projects, Greyling highlighted two:
“We empower 108 community women through micro-business development, of which 56 are mothers of children with disabilities. We recycle preloved clothes, shoes and other textiles from schools, corporate-volunteer programmes and the public. Our inclusive team sort and bale these items for our micro businesses to resell to their communities,” she explained.
For Naidoo, the proof is in the pudding – he said there have been many success stories from the micro-businesses.
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“Many of our mothers have been successful – buying their own homes and care. One of our mothers was able to put two children through Wits University and she only has a Grade 4 education herself,” said Naidoo.
He added that the unemployment rate of people with disabilities is far too high.
“If you look at the statistics from 20 years ago of how many people with disabilities are actually employed, it’s shocking – it hasn’t changed,” he said, “We are trying to break down those barriers.”
In addition to reusing textiles through these micro-businesses, Clothes to Good also upcycles textiles to create toys.
“In our toy factories, people with disabilities create early childhood development (ECD) resources from textile waste not suitable for our micro-businesses. [These include] beanbags made from recycled jeans and filled with clean, shredded shoe waste or sensory snakes made from that ever-frustrating single sock,” explained Greyling.
She added that these toys are distributed to 148 ECD centres that are impacting over 7 000 children, including 500 children with disabilities.
Local schools get involved
St Henry’s Marist College recently took up the challenge to collect clothes for the initiative. Life Orientation educator Liezl McDonald said charity work is important to the school.
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“Outreach is very important to St Henry’s – it’s one of our pillars. We have a group of Grade 10 volunteers who help Lily of the Valley, which is a children’s village in Hammersdale. I have worked with Jesse and Tammy from Clothes to Good for years, and it’s been a wonderful opportunity for our learners to get involved with giving back,” she said.
McDonald explained that the learners will be involved in marketing the initiative until the collection date on July 21 when clothes will be collected and weighed by Clothes to Good.
“Grade 10 volunteers will come up with a marketing strategy, draw up an electronic marketing outline as well as create videos to go on social media,” she said, adding that the school aims to collect 300 bags of clothing.
Holy Family College Durban also recently took part in the Clothes to Good initiative. Bags of clothing were collected by Clothes to Good in March.
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