Project Gateway – South Africa

Like Fashion Capital's sister site Fashion Enter, Project Gateway is also a non profit organisation. Established in 1992 as a social outreach of the churches in Pietermaritzburg it was aimed at meeting the needs of the poor and empowering the disadvantaged.

Having been given the old prison site in Pietermaritzburg, the Gateway centre was born through a founding document signed by twenty one local, multi-denominational and multi-cultural churches.

We met with Di Milford to discuss the possibilities of working together in some capacity.

Out of Project Gateway the Gateway School of Fashion was established, but unlike any other School or university, they pay their students to attend thus reaching out to those who would never normally be given this opportunity. Currently they have 22 students all straight out of township.

The project has brought together a unique partnership between leading fashion designer Karen Millen, a charity HOPEHIV, Project gateway and the University College for the Creative Arts at Rochester.

Sheelagh Wright at UCCA commented,

'Traveling with Karen to select a project location and the 22 students for this course has been an amazing experience. Meeting the staff and students at Project Gateway is totally inspiring and I feel priviledged in being able to help them achieve their goals of making a difference to the lives of these students and their families.'

On top of this Gateway also supports young businesses and offers a retail shop called Zandla as a distribution channel.

Zandla Xpressions is a retailer and distributor based in Project Gateway. Young businesses can sell their goods through Zandla and use its established points of sale to grow more quickly into profit making independent companies.

Their ranges include a wide variety of ethnic and contemporary beaded jewellery, home décor products, ethnic wall hangings, fibre paper products, wire & metal craft, beaded tableware, soaps, scented candles and lots more.

We were bowled over with Project Gateway and are in serious talks regarding a possible CMT unit with them, whereby garments are designed by our UK designers in the UK and then produced and manufactured locally in South Africa at the Gateway Project.

Watch this space for more to follow…

For the full gallery of images taken at Project Gateway please follow the link:

Click here for Project Gateway Gallery