Shining Light Winners Finish Three-Month Course
Staff Writer | Monday September 24, 2018 13:56
The three-month programme, which is offered in partnership with Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, affords the winners requisite skills that are vital for their jewellery design apprenticeship.
Mbako Baraedi, Tshepo Dithebele, Gaone Otsile from Botswana and Richardlee Shoombe, Frans Uunona and Taleni Udeiko from Namibia, were selected from more than 130 entries for their outstanding jewellery designs and unique interpretation of the theme.
The Shining Light Awards, part of the De Beers Designers Initiative, recognise and celebrate emerging jewellery designers in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa while providing entrants with a valuable platform to build their careers in the jewellery design industry.
Entrants were required to design commercially viable jewellery collections that demonstrated an artistic interpretation of this year’s theme, ‘Protecting Nature’s Beauty’. Forevermark, the diamond brand from De Beers Group, in recognition of the company’s commitment to biodiversity, conservation and sustainability, chose the theme.
After the CAD training, the winners will be accorded an apprenticeship at the Forevermark Design and Innovation Centre, Milan Polytech both in Milan, Italy and a regional design institution, where they will have the opportunity to work alongside experienced international jewellery designers.
The De Beers Designers Initiative provides a fantastic platform for emerging jewellery designers in southern Africa to showcase their skills, and plays an important role in nurturing design talent in diamond producing countries.
The Diamond Academy and Shining Light Awards form part of De Beers’ Beneficiation Strategy that ensures skills development on the diamond pipeline amongst youth in Botswana and other producer countries.
Meanwhile, De Beers Global Sightholders Sales (DBGSS) Diamond Academy last week graduated nine learners under the Learnership Programme. The company will absorb learners who were declared competent after successfully completing the instructional learning phase as interns.
The four-month Learnership Programme is aimed at skills development and as such, upon successful completion of the course learners can apply for any future role advertised within the group. The DBGSS Diamond Academy consists of a team of international instructors, who offer training in both rough and polished diamond grading, aspects of Health and Safety and the training of assessors.
All instructors have extensive knowledge of the diamond industry and the role played by De Beers therein. Their knowledge and skills enable them to offer maximum value to global academy partners in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia.