Ms Liezl Kok – Product developer
Liezl qualified as a graphic designer from TWR (Technikon Witwatersrand). While studying she began freelancing in the private sector with award winning results. She joined the corporate sector after her studies were completed in 2000. In 2010 she left the corporate sector as an art director, and started to focus her creative efforts on upliftment programs in underprivileged communities around South Africa.
Liezl has been acclaimed in the media as a training guru and with a high success rate in the sector. She aspires to seeing the change in South Africa. “Through trial and error I’ve developed a training program within the community, for the people. My biggest achievements have been to develop successful social entrepreneurs within the community. I live to create those “I Can” moments within the participants, as I believe we all have the potential to live our lives to the fullest.” She began by training unemployed youths in Mamelodi Township in 2010 to do fossil casting with WITS University at the Paleoanthropology Department. Liezl honed her moulding and casting skills during the time spent at the university.
Liezl was contacted by the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria in 2014 and was asked to join a specialized team in the development of new products for the faculty’s skills lab. After trial and error the first training aid models were produced and tested with success. Anatomoulds Pty Ltd was formed to create, manufacture and distribute these models.
With the support of the University of Pretoria and generous funding from the Health and Welfare Seta (HWSETA), 20 previously disadvantaged youths from Soshanguve received training in moulding and casting. These young people now form the production team for Anatomoulds.