Non-profit company led by Wongakazi Majola Impactful Initiatives is launching an enterprise initiative based on a food, arts and crafts market specifically for cottage industry entrepreneurs and SMMEs to sell their products. Happening on the 3rd and 4th of December 2022, the market has been strategically developed to directly assist micro enterprises with the knowledge and ability to successfully sell their products to consumers with the result that their businesses grow and remain sustainable.

Impactful Initiatives will offer enterprise development support through a needs analysis on various ‘business’ basics such as quality control, packaging and price point. Each of the selected enterprises will be provided with a free stall from where they can sell their products.

Majola explains that enterprises are always faced with 3 major challenges - access to markets, lack of finance and capacity building. “Impactful Initiatives is focusing on creating access to markets, thus addressing the first major hurdle. The aim of our market is to help grow micro entities and SMMES in the food, arts and crafts sectors through effective and real enterprise development. We want to help enterprises reach the next level so that they can do this for themselves,” explains Majola.

The benefits of food, arts and crafts SMMEs, or cottage industries as they are also known, are clear. Aside from enabling individuals and groups to create an income, they allow people to take control of their lives and bring earnings into their communities. The sector helps boost the economy of communities and plays a surprisingly large role in the nation’s economy. The informal economy, of which many cottage industry businesses are a part, consists of roughly 2.5 million people. It provides crucial wages for the country’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.

“What many small enterprises are lacking is experience and know how. You need to understand how, what and where to sell in order to sell, and this is where mentorship and the opportunity to take products to market are needed. The talent is already there and the products are beautiful, they just quality control, mentorship and a marketplace,” says Majola.

“One of the small enterprises makes leather handbags and we’ve shown her how to package each of them beautifully so that consumers, retailers and companies order large quantities. Who wants a R1000.00 leather handbag packaged in a plastic bag?”

More about the Food, Arts and Crafts Markets

The first 2-day market will take place on 3rd and 4th December from 10am to 6pm at Winston Ridge Park, Athol Oaklands Road. The market will exclusively host a maximum of 25 selected enterprises. Parking can be found along the streets around Blubird Shopping Centre and the Winston Ridge Park. Follow @fac_lifestyle_market on Instagram

About Wongakazi Majola

Wongakazi Majola has an MBA from Henley Business School, in addition to over two decades of success in conceptualising enterprise development strategies, establishing strong governance, and employing ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) principles to achieve long-term sustainable growth through various industries. In 2020, she had an opportunity to Co-Head Operations focusing on Reporting for the Solidarity Fund, an NPO that was announced by the President of South Africa to assist with the COVID pandemic and that went on to assist with the social unrest of 2021 and the KwaZulu-Natal floods.

Wongakazi has worked for Monitor Group - a first-tier international management consulting company. She also has experience in the economic and social development fields through her work as an Enterprise Development Specialist for ex-South African Deputy President Pumzile Mlambo on the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa program.

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