Work in The City JHB article - Written by Anne Lemaire

Article written by Anne Lemaire translated from its original French version - @WITC January 2023.

You know how much WITC likes to value the project of the women of our community, and even more so when they root their project in the local fabric and that they value traditional know-how. Christel Grat corresponds in all respects to this profile of female entrepreneurs. Since 2021, she has been developing her Kalunza brand. This is a range of practical and beautiful accessories, marrying Shweshwe and Suede fabrics for variations that can be declined at will. The choice is wide: 600 possibilities for personalized items. So, what will be yours?

A tax lawyer by training, Christel Grat had an active and demanding career in Wealth Management in Paris when a professional opportunity arises for her husband in Johannesburg. We are in 2014, the choice to go live with family is carefully considered. Her daughters being small, Christel decides to take advantage of what is then presented as a parenthesis to devote more time to them. She is on leave from her company. Certain that she will return there two years later.

Even if it was a fully assumed professional break, however, it is not in Christel's nature to remain inactive. As soon as she arrives, she joins Joburg Accueil to get to know her new adopted city and discovers the community center of Soweto. When she was still in France, she had already this desire to engage in a solidarity project, she had given it up for lack of time. From then on, she will get involved in the collective of French women who work with the Little Rose community center.

Given her background, she was appointed to help the administrative part. She quickly realized how much the creation of a sewing workshop within the center is part of a virtuous social circle: giving work to women from the disadvantaged township was equivalent to building production and generating a stable income for them. Christel already sees in it a perfect example of empowerment, this notion that is difficult to translate into French and suggests the "development of power". We can speak of empowerment to designate this process by which a person acquires mastery of his means to put himself in a perspective of development and control of his own life.

In the end, the African parenthesis which was to last two years is prolonged. Christel then thought about a professional project to develop in South Africa.
Drawing on her experience at Little Rose, she materialized the idea of ​​launching her own brand, always with the vision of helping local communities, and particularly women who, in South African society, are the first to suffer the deterioration of the labor market.

Christel imagines a range of functional accessories, both practical and elegant. She wants to highlight the know-how of artisans by highlighting the identity of the country. The idea of ​​using Shweshwe, this typically South African fabric a bit unknown outside the borders, comes to her as obvious. By combining it with Suede, this fabric with a brushed finish, she wants to offer high-end products, with a colorful and stylish graphic line. She chooses to start her collection with three referenced items: covers for laptops, matching pockets for storing sockets, cables and extensions, and desk pads. With the full color palette of Shweshwe and Suede, it boasts no less than 600 possible combinations. This will not be the least of the qualities to meet the personality of each client!

Once the concept has been defined, Christel then sets out to find a fabric supplier and above all someone who will become her privileged interlocutor to decline the patterns she designs: this one will have to be the guarantor of the quality of her products. She finds it in the person of Mandla Nkube. He is the one who will make the products from his workshop and will identify and appoint talented women seamstresses who live in Soweto and the CBD (Central Business District) of Johannesburg. With him, Christel is happy to be able to count on neat, regular work and flawless perfection in the finishes.

At the same time, it was obviously necessary to find a name for this brand in the making. This research was the subject of a stubborn and sharp brainstorming. The chosen name had to reflect the African culture while being memorable by a European and American public. Of course, it shouldn't have already been registered. Plus a few consonance constraints that Christel was keen on. Thus, was born Kalunza!

Addressing individuals and professionals alike, Christel has for the past year established its young brand in an already very promising dynamic of success. Orders from individuals thanks to its network and its presence at the Jobourg Accueil Christmas market, but also group orders thanks to a commercial approach with large companies or institutions. Result, orders of 200 to 400 sets for Conventions for the United Nations, the World Bank, and for ENGIE, L'Oréal or travel agencies...

This is already a satisfaction for this young entrepreneur to know that her brand has found an audience. Today, Christel is about to launch her website, a new essential step, before developing digital marketing in 2023.

Christel speaks only humbly of the success of this first year of activity, but what she is the proudest of is the social impact that Kalunza has on the lives of the women who create these pieces with their hands, assuring them a stable job and fair compensation commensurate with their talent.

Kalunza is a brand of sparkling and chic accessories, just like its creator!