OWA Jewellers: Enactus CUT Student Wins TEA 2025 Challenge

From Concept to Student-Owned Enterprise

Kabelo Makhetha, a current Enactus CUT member, has turned personal experience into innovation with OWA Jewellers, a student-owned enterprise creating products like the Carelink Pendant which helps protect individuals living with dementia.

At the 2025 TEA Kasi Pitching Challenge in Bochabela, Bloemfontein, Kabelo’s enterprise earned top honours, securing prize money and mentorship to scale production and grow the business.

Through Enactus, Kabelo combines hands-on learning, innovation and entrepreneurship, ensuring that OWA Jewellers is student-owned and driven, reflecting the model where Enactus students fully lead the social innovations they create.

A Personal Journey Inspiring Social Impact

Kabelo’s inspiration is deeply personal. His family cared for his great-grandmother living with dementia and later his grandfather, experiences that motivated him to develop a solution to support both patients and families.

The Carelink Pendant is a necklace embedded with a QR code storing the wearer’s identity, next-of-kin contacts and home address. By scanning the pendant, caregivers and community members can help safely return lost individuals to their families.

Enactus Students Driving Impact Through Real-World Platforms

Through external programmes like TEA, Kabelo connects government, corporates and township entrepreneurs, enabling small business owners to showcase ideas, gain practical skills and receive mentorship. This exposure allows Enactus students to extend the impact of their ventures beyond campus, applying their social innovations in real-world contexts.

Enactus Students Succeed Beyond Campus

Kabelo has represented South Africa on the global stage as part of the 2022 Enactus CUT team at the Enactus World Cup in Puerto Rico. Today he continues to lead OWA Jewellers as a 2025 MTN Digital Innovation Challenge finalist, demonstrating that Enactus students can build enterprises that thrive beyond the programme and scale real-world social impact.

Enactus provides mentorship, resources and a supportive ecosystem but it is the student ownership of ideas that drives measurable success. OWA Jewellers is a prime example of this model in action.

Looking Ahead

With prize funding and mentorship from TEA and other partners, Kabelo plans to scale Carelink Pendant production, collaborate with other jewellers and expand into related jewellery products.

OWA Jewellers stands as a beacon for student-led social innovation, showing what Enactus students can achieve when they own their ideas and take them from concept to measurable social impact.