JOBS CREATED FROM FOLK STORIES

Dr. Ina LE ROUX is helping to leave a legacy that might have gone missing for good. She is helping to preserve folk stories of the Venda, by using needle and thread. Her efforts have reached as far afield as the USA, the Netherlands and the UK. Ina was an Afrikaans literature lecturer at the University of Venda, when a student told her that his grandmother knew many Venda folk stories (ngano). The following week, Ina drove with the student to his grandmother's home in a rural area. More students took her to see their eldery relatives who were full of Venda oral history. In 1996 Ina completed a doctorate on the interpretation of Venda folk stories. She wrote a book about Pastor Piet MAVHETHA, who helped her with her research. She also wrote a book with Prof. Jaco KRUGER about Venda songs. Ina came up with the idea of using the Venda women to bring their folk stories to life by getting them to do embroidery. So the Tambani Project was born, named after one of the oldest story tellers that Ina met. Ina had a few women living with her in Johannesburg while they learnt embroidery skills. Now there are two groups with 40 to 60 embroiders in Venda. Ina draws illustrations based on the folk stories, and the women embroider this on pieces of material (malappies), creating a quilt. She displayed their first creations at a church. One of the creations are now in Paducah, Kentucky, USA, where the American Quilters’ Society hold their annual conference. Together with the embroidered works, the buyer gets the printed folk story and a picture of the women who worked on that piece. The work has now progressed to include malappies handbags and tea cosies.