Why should I buy an Art Bag by Blakstone-Crafts?

We have more than 5000 homeless people just living in the city bowl of Cape Town, some of them have shack like shelters erected, some of them sleep on the streets. Inequality in general is a big problem here in South Africa as only 42 % could go into a homeless shelter because there are not enough. We have different stages of poverty, homeless who live in the streets, we have homeless who have erected some sort of shelter in the streets or free ground and we have people living in Townships in shacks or social housing. But we pretty much have no middle class, economically spoken. So that leaves the wide gap between rich and poor and the situation we face on a daily base.

Further,

homeless and disadvantaged people are a nuisance and disturbing and therefore most of the homeless people been chased away and not acknowledged as human beings.

 “They should find work instead of begging”, “they should be cleaner”, “they just urinate everywhere and steal”. The government should do something”, and the list of excuses is endless.

And, when the poverty knocks at the door, nearly everybody is reluctant to give a stranger work, even if it’s only washing the car or cleaning up in the garden.
Of course, why would I invite a stranger into my personal space and trust – so that I might end up losing all my possessions, because I get robbed or worse. And this fearful thought keeps most people in the position to ignore this fact and rather be occupied by the thought that homeless people are disgusting and should rather leave, wherever that does not really matter, just away from the eyesight.  Yeah and unfortunately, we could go on with the vicious cycle of poverty and criminality, because it goes hand in hand.

But,

we just forget always that this can happen in a blink of an eye and everything is gone and lost and maybe than the last resort is the streets to survive. And as it is a mix of all heritages as well of different countries of this continent – there is also a mix of professions and talents, people have. Professions and talents which have no room to display no ground to nurture within.

And therefore,

we want to create that platform to help others and be an enabler to connect people to this project from all over the world and in doing so, the opportunity for our disadvantaged and homeless people of a better life, is closer.  And you helped and contributed in buying this bag.

Thank you so much,

Blakstone – Crafts