“If you love what you do, this skeletal mess is nothing,” says Michael “Buda Mike” Maluleke while inspecting a couch with tattered covers. He nods his head again. “I give it a new look and form, and that's part of self-satisfaction.  I also know that I am not doing it for myself, but for the next person.”

Buda Mike, from Magangeni village at Elim, is a self-employed entrepreneur who fixes furniture to earn a living. He says that he started repairing and covering chairs, sofas and beds after he, as a small boy, had watched his uncle doing the same job. As his love of upholstery grew, he learnt upholstery skills at a training centre to add to the knowledge that he already had.

The Elim upholsterer says that his biggest challenge is when he has to correct factory errors on the object. In some cases these errors, he says, the client hadn't even noticed for all the years they had been using a sofa or chair. “Some people may just look at me and despise me as I work under the tree,” Maluleke says. “But I know that I am doing a worthy job. Then I am proud of my skills and abilities.”

Maluleke maintains that many youths who came to work for him as assistants are now fully employed in big companies around the country. “It's true there's shortage of jobs in our country, but we must just try to use the knowledge and skills we have to create jobs for ourselves and those around us,” he says. “In today's world, job creation is necessary. I think people mustn't only wait for a job opportunity to come their way. You must stand up and do something.”