Turning trash into beautiful art
One man's trash is another man's treasure! Yandiswa Mazwana is transforming recycled plastic into stunning works of art, bringing beauty and inspiration to her community in Cape Town.
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00:00Our lives began to change through a plastic bottle.
00:11How did a chance encounter with an artist on this beach 24 years ago change Yandiswa
00:17Mizwana's life forever?
00:22Yandiswa lives in Maspumelele, about 40 kilometres outside Cape Town.
00:27She left her grandparents' village at the age of 19, hoping to study, but she ended
00:31up cleaning beaches.
00:33That job was about to come to an end when she met Monique Fagan.
00:38And then we said, oh, by the way, we are looking for jobs.
00:43And then we don't know what we are going to do because we're collecting litter and we're
00:46not getting any experience to find other jobs.
00:51The colourful plastic she was dumping at the landfill site intrigued her.
00:55She couldn't quite figure out what to make with it, but artist Monique Fagan had a plan.
01:03She came with a big pile of rubbish and then said, guys, let's have a workshop.
01:07Then it started then.
01:08She said, OK, guys, we'll make a circle and then we'll just think of our background.
01:16Closing her eyes and thinking of her childhood herding cattle with her grandfather.
01:20She made a cow, others made screens and mats, but she still wasn't convinced.
01:26How do you even pick up something dirty and wanting to exchange it for money?
01:34Excited by what they had produced, the artist took them to a tourist shop in central Cape Town.
01:40It was just a moment of feeling we were going to embarrass ourselves because the shop was
01:44so beautiful.
01:45And then we took a big screen caption.
01:47We hide our faces behind the little piece of a plank so that people, they don't see
01:52our eyes if this is really ugly, but I tell you, people were like so excited.
01:57They were like, this is so beautiful.
01:59This is so nice.
02:01We are not crazy anymore.
02:03They are the craziest because they throw the rubbish and then they're buying back it back
02:08from us.
02:09They left the shop that day with a large order and never looked back.
02:18How did this humble workshop turn them into an international success?
02:24We went to Design in Daba, which is a big international event and we were very busy.
02:30We had so many orders, created opportunity for me to be invited to Australia 2006, the
02:35Sydney Trade Fair 2007, the Melbourne one.
02:392009, I went to Paris, I visited Matara.
02:42Our lives started to be on a level whereby we were able to send our children to private
02:48schools.
02:49An Australian donor donated this double story house to Yandiswa.
02:56So what I decided to do was to do a symbol or evidence of how much do I appreciate the
03:03universe for providing me with plastic bottle to change my life.
03:08So I decided to share my house with women who are still looking for jobs and having
03:13babies so that we can look after their babies.
03:19How did making art from recycled plastic expand to growing gardens and running a nutrition
03:24program?
03:25During COVID, what I've noticed mostly is that our young people, they don't have what
03:32I can call our natural skills that were given to us by our grandmothers at home.
03:37And our community members here are struggling a lot in terms of food.
03:43So she opened eight community kitchens and established a garden program with ten young
03:48men like Vuyisani Mabubengwan.
03:52The garden champions are turning every possible pocket of the land into a vegetable garden.
03:58They were telling me that a size of a tall garden can feed the whole family.
04:04But I didn't believe that.
04:05I thought that, yeah, no, it's not possible until I experienced it.
04:12So far, they've established over a hundred gardens, aiming for 200 by the end of the
04:16year.
04:17Mass creative hub and Mama Yandi changed my life a lot.
04:24Since I have a salary that I'm getting, I can manage to do my needs and helping the
04:30people around the community.
04:32It doesn't end here in our big sites.
04:36We move around the gardens.
04:42After COVID, Yanduso formalized her work, establishing Massy Creative Hub, a non-profit
04:48organization.
04:51A space for young people in Massy to acquire a better level of self-confidence and also
04:59gain skills in order to better their own community and also create easy access to
05:06a healthy plate or healthy food.
05:08So it's a child of Massy bettering the person and the community or the streets of Massy.
05:16Ten young ambassadors run an after-school and nutrition program.
05:26Yanduso's daughter, Luando Siboninge, assists with the Nourish Child Program, educating
05:30children about healthy food choices run in conjunction with a local university.
05:37This changed my life.
05:38Places that I go to, like to the training in Joburg, Serete, to Stellenbosch University,
05:45my family can recognize me now.
05:48Yanduso's drive and love of art has transformed so many lives in her community.
05:55That makes me want to wake up early in the morning and go do more.
06:00For me, I'm so grateful for the beach environment, for the plastic bottles, to change my life.