Kaross featured embroiderer for October 2017 Flora Mkhawani

A few words spring to mind when I think of Flora. Perserverance is one of them, and tenacity. Pride and self-worth.

Hers is a story that speaks for many of the women at Kaross. The story of a loving, caring mother and wife who wants more for her children than what she ever had.

This didn’t come easy for Flora (45), who grew up in Modjadji Village quite some distance from Nkambako. She never had the opportunity to finish school, having to leave in grade 10. She met her husband, Rocket Nboweni, and started a new life in Nkambako Village. While Rocket is working as a Security Guard in Johannesburg, Flora keeps the household afloat, her children motivated and puts food on the table with her earnings from Kaross.

She is a self-taught embroiderer,

and applied at Kaross for the first time in 2002. But she was not able to secure a job. Through perseverence and hard work she bettered her skill and finally got employed in 2005.

It is this example that she leads by. Teaching her four children to make the best of every opportunity they are given. To work hard, be self-reliant and create their own futures in a country where one can take nothing for granted. And thus far she has succeeded in etching these values like a blueprint in their lives.

Priska (27) matriculated at Mawahwa High School and is busy doing her practical in office management at the Correctional Services in Nkowankowa. Granny (21) matriculated at Nkwazeni High. She works as an admin clerk and data capturer in Polokwane. Comment (17) is in grade 11 at Nkwazeni High, an aspirant law student, and Salvation (10) is in Nkambako Primary.

“I love working for Kaross.”

Her smile is catching and her eyes radiant with pride as she tells me she does all the work herself and never asks her daughters to help. In that way guaranteeing the quality of her work and teaching her children about work ethic.

A positive, peacefull homemaker - yet another strong woman who is part of the thread that embroiders the future of the children of South-Africa. Flora, we salute you!