What started as a meeting of two people over a denim skirt, has inspired hundreds of South Africans to lend a helping hand in getting a young man to design school.
Centurion, South Africa (18 May 2023) – Lucky Masango and Lana Brunner met by chance and it has been the most incredible thing!
Lana has been visiting her sister in Centurion and found herself stopped at a robot and looking at Lucky, who was standing there holding up a denim skirt. She was immediately curious and asked him why he had the skirt. He replied with utter pride, that his son had made it from denim scraps.
The light changed and Lana had to drive on but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to speak to Lucky so she turned around at the next light and set off back to find him.
“What struck me about this guy, though, was that he was a respectable-looking middle-aged gentleman, holding up one item of clothing to show the drivers that were stopped at the light: A very unusual demin skirt, which looked like it had been carefully crafted from up-cycled denim clothing.
Curious me just had to know: So, atypically, I wound down my window and asked him what he was selling.
And he very eagerly told me that he wasn’t trying to sell anything. He was trying to raise funds for one of his sons, who desperately wanted to go to fashion design school.I am not in a position to spare much. In fact, I gave my last R5 cash to a parking attendant yesterday.
But at the next intersection, I had to make a U-Turn – because I had to know more. Something beyond me was urging me that this was important. And nope – it’s not something that I’ve ever done before.So I stopped at the garage on the corner, got out, bought a cold drink for him (I had to swipe for that – plastic, you know), and called him over to find out more.”
Lana and Lucky sat down to chat about the skirt and his life. She learned that he had travelled from rural Pretoria the day before but hadn’t managed to get to “the big city” so spent the night sleeping under a bridge, all so that he could stand at the robot to highlight his son’s work.
His son, Immanuel Moyo, has a dream to become a fashion designer, but the family has little, so he works with scraps of fabric. Lucky in turn, when a little money allows, heads into the city in the hopes of displaying his fashions, to raise money for Immanuel’s dream.
As they chatted, Lana decided she would help Lucky make a difference. She asked for his number and explained that if each person who saw his story sent him an R10 e-wallet, he could put his son through design school in no time! So she shared his story, with his consent, along with his number and before long, the story was reaching people overseas. In the process, they were able to raise R6,000 through his e-wallet.
By the time we reached out to Lana, Lucky’s e-wallet had reached its transaction limit. Meaning so many people had donated to his son’s fund, that the service was no longer available. Speaking to Lucky, she urged him to open a savings account for Immanuel so the people still wanting to help, could do so. Lana hopes to set up a crowdfund but the ultimate goal is to get Immanual noticed by a design school.
What started as a call to stop and listen, has progressed into a life-changing moment. Lana is filled with hope for the future and believes that if every South African took a moment to listen, tomorrow would definitely be a better day!
“And please… let’s each do our part to reach out and get to understand each other.
It really isn’t difficult… it’s a little matter of getting past the fear and mistrust, that makes all the difference – that, and leaving the past where it belongs, and starting to take hands to make plans for a better tomorrow: Together.
Plans that actually get Acted upon. Together.If you leave a bucket under a dripping tap, eventually, it will overflow.
Love and Light to you all.
May SA have hope yet.”
When Lana shared Lucky’s story and his son’s denim skirt, she had done so anonymously but people were so inspired, we tracked her down. While that was taking place, talented author and gardener Jane Griffiths started a crowdfund to help Lucky finally access the kind of funding needed to send his son to school.
She set the fund up on BackaBuddy here. Immanuel is already a talented designer, you can see his work via his Instagram here.
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