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People living with HIV light up world
Igna Schneider . Die Burger. 06 December 2002. Republished courtesy of News24.com
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Once a week Gloria Mantsu boards a taxi from Philippi to Observatory in Cape Town with a bag full of hand-decorated light bulbs.
Barely two weeks later, the globes illuminate some of the most fashionable shops in Paris, where the French snap them up at $9 each.
The globes, which Gloria (35) decorates painstakingly with beads, silicone and metal wire at her home is her only source of income. Both she and her 9-year-old daughter are HIV-positive. Her husband has already died of HIV/AIDS. She also cares for a 13-year-old boy.
Gloria forms part of a group of HIV-positive single mothers in the Khayelitsha area who have formed a new partnership with a French and South African designer, producing exclusive lamp art for the European market.
They are supported by local HIV/AIDS organisation, Wola Nani. The women deliver their products on a weekly basis - which includes paper lamp shades - to a depot in Observatory. Here the goods are packaged and despatched to Cyrille Varet, the designer's shop in Paris.
Last week Varet launched the Ithemba project (a Xhosa name, meaning "hope") in his shop in the Viaduc des Arts - a restored area also known as Paris's "temple of art and crafts".
He has sold almost 2 500 globes in France alone - each accompanied with a label bearing the decorator's name - to at least 40 shops. Varet has secured outlets in Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam, London and Tokyo.
The project was initiated following a meeting between Cape designer Scott Hart and Varet earlier this year at the 2002 International AIDS Conference in Barcelona.
Varet said that after having lived with an HIV-positive friend for six years, he decided he wanted to do something to give HIV/AIDS sufferers hope.
"Sending medication to Africa is not the only solution," he said. He and Scott decided to include crafts, made by HIV/AIDS victims, in his European furniture range, as a way of publicising the HIV/AIDS message in Europe.
Gloria, who flew to Paris with Hart to attend the launch, says it gave her great pride to see her work displayed in Varet's shop. "It's my only income and I'm glad people like my work," she said at the event.
Hart said not only has the project given the women an income, it has also given them confidence. "The discrimination against HIV/AIDS sufferers is intense. The project has offered women the opportunity of supporting each other." |
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