DWDE have had a long standing relationship with the Cape Town University of Technology and this has resulted in collaboration with the Industrial Design Department this year. Industrial design students were asked to work in groups and develop a product that can be profitably produced in their end of the year projects. The students chose Vukuhambe SELF-Help Group to collaborate with after a brief meeting in April.
The product designed by students can be described as a wallet made out of bamboo and leather. The process involved is fairly simple to understand. A mold was created and bamboo gets layered by grossing the grains and applying a heat set glue named resin. This is then inserted into a mold and pressed in a heat press and then the inside is created by leather and elastic.
We are very excited about this collaboration between our disability workforce and the creative team of the CPUT design department we believe this endeavor has great potential since it touches on various current topics like employment of the disabled workforce of South Africa and the integration of green eco-friendly products to the market.
