Meet some of the amazing people who helped us up-cycle the bus

On this journey, Inside and Out.

When this old bus that was used to transport school children arrived on the 24th of October 2020 as our own, it was pure excitement, nerves and a whole lot of "Let's get to it !" from the entire team.

Within a month, seats, floors and everything were removed with the help of members from our social enterprise 'For Real' and replaced on either side with shelves and metal containers. But there's definitely more to it than that, it's a story of its own and so this week we acknowledge and thank the minds and talent that were with us along the way so buckle up and let's gooo !

It was certain the Skhaftin bus had to be eye-catching and really cool but there was also a blurry vision on how to bring that to life and so because we do our best to work with local people, we called for help from our very own community..

I had a chat Ilka about the idea of the interior and her experience of briefing the carpenter and how stressful it would get on Saturdays and Sunday removing, fixing and working towards making sure Skhaftin would be beautiful.

A very special thank you to Shadrack Mgiba, an incredibly talented carpenter who has been a resident at Victoria Yards at the Tin House for 3 years now. Since he was very young he had been taught everything he knows by his Grandfather, who was also a carpenter. Shadrack recycles and refurbishes old wood and creatively turns that into some of his greatest work.

A brief was given to him and the work began. "I was very happy to be working on Skhaftin and to be part of something different because I've never done a bus before and I hope I get the opportunity to do more !" He says.

Although he was given a brief, "you can tell he really thinks about the project" Ilka says. And really so many ideas and features in the interior were his because he took his time to make sure that it was solid and practical. It was heartwarming when he would actually go out of his way to do his research on where to source the right materials and often coming up with cool solutions and suggestions.

He was absolutely reliable throughout working together. He has a very distinct way of bringing some rough ideas like "stairs that are kind of like Legos but safe and big" to reality and even testing them himself in order to out safety first.

My personal favorite is the feature behind the driver's seat with the plants hanging on hooks !

Again, Skhaftin truly appreciates the outstanding work achieved by Shadrack for the bus that certainly gets pointed at for it's groovy and beautiful look we love.

Kindly stop by at Victoria Yards and give the gentleman a thumbs up or perhaps you'd love to work with him too, let him know.