At Sheltersuit South Africa, we are dedicated to creating products that lighten the load for people experiencing homelessness. At the same time, we equip our team with the skills they need to work for an organisation that cares about people’s wellbeing.
Half the country’s population—a staggering 30.4 million people in South Africa—live below the upper poverty line. The Covid-19 pandemic has made a bad situation even worse, with 70% of the population experiencing loss of employment or reductions in pay or revenue.
With little or no protection from the elements, life on the streets is tough. Many displaced people struggle daily to survive, scrounging for food and other items in refuse bins and rubbish dumps.
Sheltersuit South Africa Foundation has introduced a portable shelter that will help ease the burden for people experiencing homelessness.
Sheltersuit is a place where people work together with thoughtfulness and dedication, creating products that help ease the symptoms for people experiencing homelessness.
Your donation will be spent on making the world a better and warmer place. Sheltersuit South Africa consists of a large team who simply want to show kindness and compassion to people whose lives are a daily struggle. With your help, we can continue to make Shelterbags and invest in our volunteers and employees.
To the production of Shelterbags, which we distribute free of charge to homeless people.
To providing skills and creating more jobs for people facing obstacles to entering the labour market.
Towards our campaign for raising awareness of the challenge of homelessness, and to raise funding.
Sheltersuit South Africa believes that every human being deserves dignity and has the right to warmth and protection from the elements. That is why we are working hard to help people in need by producing and distributing as many Shelterbags as possible.
Sheltersuit South Africa’s studio serves as a skills development hub to equip our team members with the necessary expertise for manufacturing a quality product.
Sheltersuit South Africa Foundation was established in 2020, shortly after the great Covid 19 pandemic came about.
The demand for shelterbags became greater as more and more people became displaced, economically, politically and socially.
After an initial trial of 4 months in 2019, the Foundation was formally registered and initial donations were received from funders, with the assistance of Sheltersuit Netherlands in Eschede, the Headquarters of our global organisation.
We were able to supply sizeable volumes of shelterbags to our partners in Enschede, United States and United Kingdom. Some of our largest orders have been exported to our funding partners in Sydney Australia.
The Team of dedicated crafters of the superbly manufactured, robust shelterbag are engaged to learn and earn. Our team consists of people who are experienced seamstresses from the once robust and functional textile and clothing manufacturing industry in the Western Cape which collapsed after the influx of imports. We are striving to revive the manufacturing capability that we have by utilising the resources of many skilled machinists who are unemployed.
We are passionate about youth development and employment creation and constantly seek out candidates for our training programme that show promise, ability and entrepreneurial characteristics.
We are dedicated to supporting local businesses and want to ensure that the sustainability of our project and businesses in South Africa are all part of our journey. Every component that we use in the manufacturing process is purchased from local suppliers and we have established shared value relationships with all our partners, distributors, associates and funders.
Our highly proficient team have been observed in action by many visitors who are intrigued by our product and our philosophy which combines nuturing skills development and creating a solution to the problem of homelessness.
After losing the father of a friend to hypothermia, that was due to not being able to protect himself against the cold weather conditions while living on the street, Bas Timmer decided that something had to be done.
At the time Bas had started his own line of clothing after finishing at the fashion academy at ROC van Twente. But it didn’t feel right to him to sell fashionable clothing at a high price, whilst many people couldn’t even afford warm and protective clothing to simply survive.
No one deserves the horrible fate of freezing to death because they can’t afford decent protective clothing. Because of this, Bas was motivated to make a change and ultimately developed his first Sheltersuit.
