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With a passion for excellence and respect for the earth, the remarkable women of Tintsaba create beautiful handmade products centred around the use of Sisal, a sustainable natural weed that grows wild in Swaziland.
Tintsaba was founded by Sheila Freemantle in 1985, her focus was on how she could help the women of rural Swaziland take charge of their lives and become independent. Starting with only 12 local women, Sheila's guidance, dedication and innovativeness brought Tintsaba to what it is today. These qualities ushered Tintsaba in to become renown for refined, high quality sisal basketry weaving, and has been recognised as an industry leader and awarded repeatedly over the years.
Since inception Tintsaba has endeavoured to create a workplace that helps our women grow and develop themselves. Through various courses and workshops ranging in a variety of subjects such as leadership, skill-set development, training, environmental awareness and women's health.
Over the last 30 years Tintsaba has trained and worked with over 1000 women in rural Swaziland. Invoking the passion that Sheila had, they are dedicated to creating the highest quality hand woven sisal products. The future for Tintsaba and Swazi women is one of independence, strength of self and to lead by example within their communities.
Khetsiwe, the head silver smith, has been creating beautiful silver jewelry at Tintsaba for 10 years – first by helping polish, file and solder, before working her way up to supervising and training the rest of the team.
The sole provider for her household of seven, Khetsiwe travels for 1.5 hours each day – on foot and in public transport – to reach Tintsaba’s studio.
In their village they have no running water, so they must walk for 3km to collect water in the evening. In rural Swaziland, these daily chores provide opportunity for friends to catch up with each other and chat, though it also means they return home late, and still need to cook dinner for the family!
Khetsiwe’s been part of Tintsaba since 1994; clocking up 13 years as a weaver before moving in to the silver workshop.
For the last 23 years, her pride in Tintsaba has been constant: “Tintsaba make me proud of myself and proud of my home… because I started working with Tintsaba, my children could start going to school.”
We’re incredibly proud of women like Khetsiwe, and so grateful that they are part of Tintsaba’s journey.
