PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF AND THE BUSINESS YOU STARTED?

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, just after the end of Apartheid as a coloured woman. My parents divorced when I was 5 years old and my mother raised us. We lived with my grandmother in a household of 23 people, in a wendy house in the yard that could only fit a queen-size bed and a cupboard, I shared a bed with my mom and my sister until I was 17 years old. We were dirt poor.

I was emotionally, mentally and sexually abused, at 6 by my uncle and raped twice as a teenager, our neighbourhood was riddled with alcohol, crime and gangsterism, a typical cape flats suburb and so I found myself becoming an introvert.

I was a difficult child, years of trauma left me with severe anxiety and I was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder after more than one failed suicide attempt and 6 years of self-mutilation.

Throughout this, I loved reading, often finding solace in the stories of others, I taught myself at 3 years old, always excelled at school and matriculated Cum Laude with 8 certificates and 6 medals, as well as teenage pregnancy.

My eldest daughter was born in my first year of university. I was accepted into the University of Cape Town, a previously whites-only university and studied Fine Art. I dropped out in my second year after my grandmother passed away and got on a train to Johannesburg to find a job, only to find out I was pregnant again with my second child.

That’s when I met my Partner Adam Knight, an architect 27 years my senior, we married and moved to a rural area outside of Durban to raise our son. Together we built our company, after years of living a nomadic life.

At first, it was incredibly difficult to maintain our lives, I am also an artist, so I worked on a few arts and crafts projects and my partner got a few little jobs here and there.

We struggled for years. Some days barely eating, people would bring us food and clothes. We lived in a tent for a year with the local rural people in KwaZulu-Natal, not ever earning more than R20, barely enough to get by with 3 children at the time. My journey was always centered around my spiritual growth and after the most intense year of survival, I prayed for a break, from this life of suffering. Someone must have been listening because a month later we moved into a house, not perfect it had no windows and ceilings and it was on a farm 16km from the closest town.

I received a phone call from a friend after drafting a business plan for our architectural company, specializing in Green Architecture and self-sustainable design, not long after drafting a proposal, we landed our first huge project, an Innovation Hub.

Now we are in our third year, still doing well. We are working on a few projects centered around self-sufficient development and adding value to the built environment.