THOHOYANDOU – "This is the time for eradicating poverty by creating projects, instead of saying there are no jobs," said the members of the Ifa Craft Project in Thohoyandou.

In February 2002, nine women from different areas in the Thohoyandou area, with a natural talent for sewing and knitting, joined hands and established the Ifa Craft Project. Ifa is a Nguni word, meaning "heritage." The name is an ideal one for the project, as people from this area are regarded as amongst the finest artists in Africa and their original works are collected worldwide.

The project is one of many other nationwide projects initiated by the Council for Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) in support of poverty eradication.

It is also helping with job creation and bringing the involvement of previously disadvantaged communities, especially rural women, into the mainstream of tourism development.

The Ifa Craft Project provides world-class service to its clients and prefers to use the indigenous Vhavenda fabrics as means of showcasing their heritage to the world. The project is producing products like handbags, cushion covers, duvet sets, table cloths, traditional Vhavenda dresses ("minwenda") and wall hangers.

Through the project, the dedicated women are now able to maintain their families, and even to pay their children's tuition fees in different institutions around South Africa.

The project team recently attended the Indaba show in Durban and the Rand Easter Show at Johannesburg for the exhibition of the Vhavenda traditional clothes. Many tourists bought "minwenda" during the exhibitions.

After that national exhibition, through support from the Department of Arts and Culture, the Ifa project was invited to exhibit their Venda traditional clothes in New Orleans in America.

The project members told Mirror that they were over the moon when South Africa won the bid to host the 2010 world cup. It is highly appreciated because the project will gain a lot from tourists.

The chairperson of the project, Mrs Emily Marema, said that her project is selling a lot of works through dedication and unity. She also thanks the Department of Arts and Culture and the CSIR for contributing and developing women in the project.

"I believe that soon we are going to have many selling points in different provinces to accommodate other cultures here in South Africa. Unfortunately, we still lack machines to cope with the large number of orders. We believe that, if we can get more machines, our project will recruit more people to eradicate poverty. Our main problem is that we are still using public transport to stock our materials," said Marema.