We featured Zizamele in August 2011, telling you how their beautiful hand-made Bambanani Bowls, seen in the Cape Grace shop, are made by a skilled team of ceramicists from Masiphumelele in Cape Town’s South Peninsula.

We’re giving them more space on the Cape Grace blog to congratulate them for achieving Runner Up in the highly contested Cape Talk Small Business Award 2012. They were nominated by a satisfied customer who’d ordered several bowls as gifts for speakers at an international medical conference in Cape Town. 

Zizamele founder and business manager Toni Burton was presented by the Mayor of Cape Town with Pastel Software, a laptop and R50,000 of Cape Talk advertising. Listen out for their radio advert from now until February or March 2013. 

More good news is that while you can find Zizamele ceramics at Cape Grace and Africa Nova (a stockist of Cape Grace shop), Zizamele are also opening a shop of their own at Imhoff Farm, Kommetjie (on the Cape Point Route).  Look for the camels and you’ll find Zizamele displaying some of the items we don’t have room for at Cape Grace, like Christmas reindeer, Big 5 candle holders, heart soap dishes and more ravishingly colourful appealing ceramics. As with the Bambanani bowls, for which Zizamele has become famous, most of the art pieces also feature the distinctive African ladies in traditional dress holding hands in unison.

You will also find their new range ‘Protect Us’, featuring endangered animals like rhino, wild dog, riverine rabbit and leopard toad (native to the wetlands of Masiphumelele). The white ceramics with simple line drawings were created in conjunction with Toni Burton’s newly graduated fabric designer daughter Amy. Originally aimed at children, with egg-cup holders, tea lights, bowls and beakers, the range is proving popular with everyone for its simplicity of design and message.

It’s heart-warming to see a small local business do so well in the international arena and through sponsorship of DTI and Cape Craft & Design Institute, Zizamele have attended trade missions and shows in Korea, India, Germany, Italy and Brazil. As a result of being exposed to buyers from all over the world, Zizamele received an order for 30,000 African Reindeer tea lights for the USA. See this picture of them all lined up ready to go!