Surviving and Thriving During the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Resilience of Craft-Making NPOs in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg

The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted vulnerable communities in the Global South. However, women craft makers in Alexandra Township, demonstrated notable resilience. This paper examines three craft-based Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting a qualitative, exploratory approach based on interviews with women participants and NPO founders (June–August 2023). Key resilience factors included livelihood support, emotional well-being, increased workload and income through product adjustment, access to tourist and local markets, and stakeholder support. Although COVID-19 is often seen as detrimental to tourism, findings reveal it acted as a catalyst for innovation among marginalised women. The study contributes to tourism resilience literature by exploring how NPOs strengthened women's adaptive capacities and offers practical recommendations for empowering women in future crises. Although grounded in Alexandra Township, the mechanisms identified offer transferable lessons for craft-based NPOs in marginalised urban contexts globally, with scope for future comparative research across informal economies.