WONDERBAG PROPELS WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

The impoverished communities of Thaba Nchu and Botshabelo will be able to prepare a well-balanced meal without using more paraffin, wood, or coal while benefiting financially through the environmentally sustainable Wonderbag project.

The project is funded by the Thabo Community Action Trust (TCAT), which is also a shareholder in Bloemfontein’s Windmill Casino. The Trust empowers communities through running projects that equip them with knowledge and skills.

Eighty families in these areas are going to benefit from the initiative through generating income for themselves. Wonderbag is a thermally insulated bag into which a person can transfer a pot of food that has been heated on a stove. The recycled foam balls inside the polycotton bag act as an insulator. By trapping the heat, the food in the pot continues to cook.

“This is a five year project and the manufacturing started on April 1. Its benefits are that it saves energy, it is safer, the food cooked in Wonderbag is healthy and it does not burn. There are seven cooperatives that will benefit by manufacturing this bag. Six of them are home-based and one is based in the factory,” said Dave Finney from Culture Corporation.

Finney said the project will create many job opportunities for the locals.

“We also have a distribution team that will distribute the bag for free by going house-to-house in the community. We have created 300 jobs and initially we are going to distribute 6000 bags a month. This team is also going to educate mothers on how to use Wonderbag.”

Maria Dashe manages the Zama-Impilo project and she is now also the chairperson of a conglomerate of sewing projects. These projects are headed by women and some are home-based. The Wonderbag project is helping her and other women to earn enough income for her family while gaining needed knowledge.

“This project is going to eradicate poverty in my community and encourage women to stand up and earn a decent living for their families. It will also help us to gain skills we need and give the knowledge of the market as well as to manage our own cooperatives. This is also going to be beneficial to the people as it saves electricity and keeps our environment clean.”

The projects have also employed people who are paid a certain amount monthly from the income they make from manufacturing the Wonderbag.

The bag will reduce carbon emissions by half over a year and save 12 million tons of combustibles. The lifespan of the Wonderbag is more than three years and it is washable.

Sam Letlatsa Chaka is one of the trustees in TCAT and a well-known businessman in Botshabelo. He says Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu, which are largely rural, are ideal areas to introduce the Wonderbag.

“Because of the unemployment problem and poverty, I think this is a good move. There is infrastructure such as this factory that is vacant and is not used to benefit people. There are about 137 of them that were initially meant to employ 10 000 people. Hardly a quarter of them are still operational.

“This is why we saw fit to come in and use one factory that will help in creating jobs for the people so that they can put food on their table. This is our main purpose and response to the call of the President ‘Together we can do more to create a better life for all’. This is why we challenge other private partners to come on board.”

The Free State Development Corporation (FDC) has given this project free space for four months to operate from.

“We have given them a rental holiday for four months. This means they will not pay rental price for this period so that they get themselves off the ground. We have also given them a community rental price that is affordable,” said the FDC’s Moletsane Sootho.