About Us

In South Africa "africa my bra" is a slang saying meaning "Africa my brother".

But in this instance "bra" is for brassiere. "Africa my bra" is the name I chose for Bra Straps made by African people.

Our packaging is from recycled brown paper (we are friendly to our environment). The colour of the name represents Our Rainbow Nation.

It started as a hobby for me when I quit smoking. About 2 years into this hobby, I came across a "beading loom" a kind of beading weaving machine. This is only a lap model. Once I started practicing on my beading loom, I could think only of bra straps.

And so it all started. I made some, practicing and working out how to attach the hooks. Then how long a strap should be. Then I started timing myself, as to how long it took to make one strap. Eventually, I got the time down from 6 hours per strap to 1 hour per strap.

So my mind started wandering, thinking of How could this product help the unemployment in South Africa and How could I get this product into production?

One day a friend came to visit, and I asked her if she did not know of some people that would be interested in doing beading work from home. She was ecstatic as she her cleaning lady was in dire need of work as she was working only 2 days a week.

The ladies/men are working from home, no need to spend money on transport to get to work. Xhosa women have grown up with beading, soon they started teaching me a stitch or two. Their creativity is endless. I have given them the freedom to be creative with the materials that I supply, restricted only by the colours that I give them.

We are already 16 women and 1 man making bra straps, some are still in training and more will be trained as the network grows. No advertising is done to get beaders, we work on a networking basis only.

As people tell their friends and as I meet people during the course of my normal day, I meet new beaders everyday.

There is no expense to the beaders. If you want a job, you have got a job!! I supply them with a needle, string, beads, hooks and the training to get started. People get paid for completed sets of "Africa my bra" straps.