Hlale Crafts, an empowerment company, was founded in 2005, and employs a number of teams of people, each with a particular set of skills: we have a team that sews, a team that paints, a financial team, and so on.

Hlale means cotton in North Sotho, and we offer a selection of unique hand-made and hand-painted articles for you to choose from. All our products are of the finest quality and the African hand-painting is done by talented and creative African women.

Our products include:

• Christmas stockings
  Beautifully decorated and available in various sizes, colours and fabrics; we are even creating a new African hand-painted stocking. The stockings can also be monogrammed.
• African hand-painted canvas bags
  Ideal for carrying groceries, running errands, taking to school, or for fundraising (we call these our Bags of Hope).
• African hand-painted table runners
  Can be framed and used as wall hangings as well.
• African hand-painted tablecloths
  Available in various sizes and themed designs, including animals.
• African hand-painted placemats
  Can be padded or single sheets.
• African hand-painted teenage bags
  Fun, sassy, personality-filled bags, available in various colours.

Our dream is for our "bags of hope" to fly all over the world and so help many less fortunate people. We want to expand this little company until it is a household name across South Africa and the world. We have already received our first order from a well-known international fundraising organisation - they used our hand-painted bags, with their logo and slogan printed on the back, to raise funds worldwide.