From iminent closure to sudden growth....hmm is that a normal business strategy?

I am back in the groove after a few months of illness and recovery :)
On returning to Dili, I was surprised and disappointed to hear that Belekria had barely opened during the six weeks I was away....Especially as they had heaps of work they could have been producing with orders from December still unfilled......
My head sewer had been struggling all year with high blood pressure issues, and then in the past few months has had family issues surface as well.  So along with some "re-entry culture shock", I fell into a pit of despair (of sorts) and began to consider closing Belekria.  But what do I do with all the orders needing to be filled?  Perhaps I could sell Belekria?
So began a series of middle of the night thought processes and all-day-on-and-off discussions with whoever could stand being around me....
I produced a small booklet for possible buyers and started putting the word out for a suitable manager/business entrepreneur (preferably a Timorese woman).
Yes, well........... it is Timor.  I guess I still forget sometimes.

SO no-one i know, knows anyone who could take the business on. ???  Its profitable, has heaps of opportunity for growth and comes with lots of support at a bargain price!! Man i think its a great business!

Then 2 days ago my remaining sewer and volunteer arrived for a chat and asked if I could keep it open for another 3 months (the rent is paid 3 months advance and is due in April) and have a go of it with Emmy as manager.   Emmy is the young woman who lives with us, and has some training in business management.
Serenity also stuck her hand up and asked if she could be a part of Belekria.
And i guess going through all the finances and having lots of new ideas for growth, well i guess it has rekindled my hope and energy.

We are yet to make any concrete decision, but it seems likely that I will offer some sort of  base salary for Emmy as manager and 3 sewers (adding the volunteer and another young woman as staff), then any profits will be distributed proportionally to them as well as to Belekria and possibly a bookkeeper.

So I will be reducing my responsibility, and hopefully setting it up gradually for me to step out completely..

Ill update again with some of the new ventures proposed....
Cheers
Cynthia

A Sack of Clothes

So remember how Serenity and I were discussing the idea of getting a sack pf second hand clothing in our village?  And how the women in the sewing room got really excited about the idea?  Well Guess what???
We did it!
Samuel assisted in purchasing the sacks.  2 smaller sacks for $30 each, and 1 large sack of remnants for $160.  We got the bags back to the sewing room and opened up the clothing ones.  We counted 175 items.  Which if we could sell half them at $1 each we would make a decent profit.  Anyway, Sinta offered to sell them on her verandah.  So Sat morning we grabbed a cart and loaded it up and walked around to her place.  I got to help her unload the stuff and organise it in piles.  (Of course i took the opportunity to pick up an item of clothing for each of us :) 
  


The good news is, that even without any advertising, lots of people immediately started gathering around and rifling through it.  So Samuel and I snuck away (to be less of a distraction) and in the evening Sinta delivered $30 to me.  The following evening she delivered another $30!  And she had recorded about $70 owed by various people.  What a profit margin!  To top it off there is still a decent sack full of clothes left.  We were stoked as you can imagine…..

Sunset market

Last year the department of tourism linked up with the organisers of Darwin’s sunset market, to commence a Timor version.  It started in the dry season, every week, and had stalls of local products, food stalls and entertainment.
The Sunset Fair was designed for tourists and foreigners living here.  It is also held at the “white skin” white sand beach called Christo Rei.  This is on the far side of Dili away from us, and combined with the fact that we didn’t have much spare cash or time we never attended.  I had asked a friend about the possibility of bellekria selling some things there, but she made a few inquiries and it seemed that the sellers needed to be a registered business or NGO, plus a stall space was $50 so we shelved the idea. 
This year as we have been expanding both with staff and product range, I have been seriously re-considering trying to get a stall at the sunset market.  So Sinta rang the organiser and was invited around immediately to sign up! We sent them along with $70 in case the price had increased.  They returned very excited as the organiser was a lovely lady who was  very encouraging about their sewing group.  The $50 fee is a one off cost which lasts the entire market season (till December).  They had to sign a contract and now they wait for their application to be approved and receive some i.d cards.  So next Friday may be our first market stall!  Of course i am racking my brains for other simple products to sell there.   I have found a sweet pattern for a child's fabric ball, as well as hoping to make lots of the cotton dresses, and more cloth books.  Word has been getting around about our books, so I think we may sell a few.

Op Shopping in a 3rd world country

A few weeks ago our neighbours needed to chop down 2 coconut trees – which is kind of ok as there are about 40 of them all around our house and we hear a coconut drop nearly every day, so a few less to worry about is a good thing.  (Although of course its a little sad to chop down a lovely fruiting tree).  Anyway, where was I….Ah yes,, so the the chainsaw man arrived and cranked up the RRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE machine.  Right next to our house which doesn't have glass in many windows, so there is no way to dampen the sound.   A few hours later, as they were still RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEing, I realised that they were also slicing the tree up into nice beams etc. and that they hadn't even started on the second tree.   Well no school today, and maybe we should go for a long walk.??  So Serenity and I soon agreed that a nice outing would to be to hike up to the closest market (only a handful of stalls) and “go opshopping” for the first time since March.  Off we went and enjoyed buying a few outfits, esp a wedding outfit for Serenity to wear to the upcoming wedding at our place.  It was a long walk, especially the walk home and we didn’t arrive home till around 4:00.  On the way home we lamented the fact that our local village didn’t have a “sack of clothes” shop we could visit.  We tossed the idea around about purchasing one ourselves……
Second hand clothes arrive in large cloth sacks about 1m wide and 1 m high.  In my browsing history it seems that most of these seem to come from China.  There is a wide variety in each sack from silk blouses to cotton tshirts and plenty of jeans thrown in. Anyone who knows me will know that its a special treat to go rummaging through second hand clothes.  I don't get to do it very often here though – maybe once every 3-6 months.  Prices vary from 50c-$4.  About the same, or a bit cheaper than Aussie Op shops.
Anyway, can you guess my thought processes???  Here we are in Bellekria, looking for cheap fabrics for our bags etc, and turning old clothing into new attractive dresses. 
On returning home I popped in to the sewing room to chat with Sinta, Novi and Anna.  I mentioned the idea of buying a sack.  They all perked up! OOH what a lovely idea!  We could buy it, open it up and sell the best stuff (after taking out our favourites of course), then, we could offer to alter the clothes to fit better $$. AND any large clothing or weird stuff we can chop up and turn into other things!  What a fantastic idea.

better books....

Well, we finally sent off the 50 bags to Darwin... All bagged and labeled.  The lovely folk from Palmerston stashed them in their bags for us yesterday afternoon as they headed home.  Sinta took today off, as she worked pretty hard last week getting them all ready.
So last night I was thinking...hmm, what shall she do now?  I dont really want to pay her wages just to potter, the uniform and bag sales to locals have slowed down, and Im not quite up to fully marketing/canvassing our cloth pads.... 
Anyway, im not sure i even offered it up as a verbal prayer, but God must have heard my sigh, cause this morning who should appear?

Sweet Beth from the library in Ermera...can she order 15 more cloth books for the library?  The people love them!  And while your at it another 2 for personal use....
Wow.  She even returned later this afternoon to pay a deposit, so we can source some fabric and get started ASAP!!!
She also asked if Sinta would be willing to run a workshop for a sewing group there.  teaching them how to make the books.  They will cover her wage for the day and any material costs.  It just seems to keep coming.  Im really not putting a lot of effort into it myself as i am just trying to cope at re-adjusting and focusing on educating the kids, and feeding us all.  Meals and school are about all i can cope with.  (Not that i am doing an exceptionally good job at either of them?)  So I am so grateful that God seems to be doing the legwork and finding work for Bellekria!

Supplies and Sources

East Timor has 2 sewing shops that I am aware of.  One of them is about 4m square, the other about the size of a double garage.  Its the best one, loaded with rolls of polyesters, and crowded with customers.  The poor blokes cutting the fabric are using a bench about 50cm wide.  A liitle awkward in making an acurate cut. 
At these shops i can get

• very limited varieties of pure cotton fabrics
• heaps of poly cotton mixes
• polyester threads - low quality but good enough?
• pins
• tape measures
• scissors
• treadle machines with electric attachments available.
• overlockers

Other necessities we have purchased are:

• small narrow sewing tables (lovingly made by Samuel)
• plastic chairs and stools
• a pedastal fan
• a large cutting table (lovingly made by Samuel)

Here we are around the cutting table on our "official " launch with all the neighbouring women. 

The main product i cant buy locally is the PUL waterproofing fabric. You can see a precious 10m roll on the table above.  I bought some from a great shop in Brisbane literally on the way to the airport to fly over to Timor.  I think they even  gave me a discount!  Very nice people!

green beans australia

I also lashed out and bought a great snap press machine from them which is really exciting!  It would have been a bit laborious to hammer in hundreds of snaps onto the pads!

First steps

Just before we returned to Timor in April this year (2010), a lovely lady gave us a donation, explaining that she raised the money by doing sewing jobs.  Samuel told her that I had a little idea for a sewing project and that we would use her money to give it a trial.  A surprise to me!...
After arriving I spoke with a long term missionary/nurse (Branca) who has worked in a small mountain village for about 7 years.  Branca was quite enthusiastic about the idea, and we decided to make some sets to trial with 6 of the more educated women in the village she works in.
Branca told me that most of the women in her village cannot read, a lot of the women don’t have underpants and some women stay at home while menstruating as they have nothing suitable to use in public.
She also re-affirmed that Education is really important.

So I went back home and began to sketch and draw, and designed my own version of a modern belted pad – to use without underpants!

Some other factors I was keen to include:
·    Adjustable – female bodies tend to fluctuate more than males.
·    Easy to sew – so women can make them themselves.
·    Simple to replicate – As above
·    Easy to replace bits – So women can repair them themselves
·    Quick to dry
·    Can be used with any scraps of absorbent type fabrics
·    Suitable for nights
·    waterproof
Amazingly I was then able to borrow a sewing machine and bought some cotton fabrics to make about 12 sets of each design. While cutting the fabric up 2 neighbouring women asked about what I was making, and after hearing about it thought it was a great idea. One of them even asked for a set straight away.

All of a sudden the idea has seemed to grow rather quickly!
 Subtle words seeped out occasionally about "Cynthia's sewing project", and hesitantly I have shared my dream with a few Aussie women.  They all seem to think its a good idea!
What do you think?

Nuts and Bolts

What do they look like?
I came across a pattern for a simple waterproof  base with loops to hold  any type of absorbent fabric.  PERFECT!

I have decided to use only 2 different styles.
circle design
belted design
Both have a waterproof layer (P.U.L.- purchased in Australia), and both use a "base" with loops to hold folded "inserts" of any type of absorbent fabric.
Both designs are very quick to dry, easy to sew and simple to repair.
As soon as I can I'll stick some photos up of my prototypes!

Where did this crazy idea come from?

Well, being a woman, I had often in the past wondered what the poorest of poor do when it comes to their monthly cycle.  When we lived in Timor in 2008, I began to wonder how even the middle class women (if there is such a thing) could afford the disposable items.

Some issues I had to consider:
·    Modern Aussie cloth pads are expensive - ~$10 each!
·    Neat all-in-one types take a long time to dry, so they would need to purchase/own more of them.
·    Would the women in East Timor think it was a weird idea?
·    The women would need to know how to wash them hygienically – I must provide an instruction sheet!.
·    Would the women even have underpants to hold them in place?