Empowering Asian Women
1st April 2007
GrassrootsUganda.com has been reasonably
successful. It's made a small but significant impact on many
African women. It is time to take it to the next level.
My next three or so
will be spent in Asia, so I am starting up GrassRootsAsia.com, a
website devoted to Empowering Asian Women. First, a little bit of
economic theory by the man described by the New York times as "probably
the most important economist in the world". That man, is Jeffrey
Sachs.
In his seminal work, "The End of Poverty", Sachs emphasizes
how important it is to get countries on the first rung of the economic
ladder. He sites China as a good example. The apparel
industry has been a leading factor in China's economic success.
The "Sweat Shops" get a bad rap by most people, but Sachs has a
different spin on it. The young ladies working in them earn more
money there than the would on rural farms. It gives them
disposable income and therefore options. Sachs compares it to the way
that America got going at the hands of immigrant textile workers.
It is on this well established theory that we will be modeling GrassRootsAsia.com on.
The "we" comes from some Filipino people that I have been
setting up this initiative with. The most notable of these people
is Ferdinand Francis. Some of you may remember the Unnamed Member
of the Dumangas Council over here.
Ferdinand is the unnamed member. Ferdinand has come a
long way from his mammary manoeuvrings, so don't let the linked story
put you off. Ferdinand, to put it in his own words, has "Found Gods
where I least expected to find them". I won't go into details,
but let me just say that Ferdinand is a change mind. It
highlights to me what a wonderful thing religion can be.
We are going to take the paper bead concept of GrassRootsUganda.com and crank it up a
few levels. Our initial plan will see about two hundred Filipino girls
working for us. Ferdinand, or Fergs as he prefers to be known, has been
hard at work for me in the Philippines. He has found us a warehouse in
southern Manila where we will set up operations.
The warehouse is
very basic. It is a tad cold. It seems to have been built
so that it acts as a wind tunnel. The are quite a few holes in
the roof as well, but as long as we keep the precious beads away from
any damp spots we will be fine. The girls are allowed to bring in
sheets of plastic to keep themselves dry. We also haven't had to
chance to install
any toilets yet. That'll have to wait for a year or two.
We have some basic tables (no chairs at this stage) set up
along the inside of the warehouse. One group
of tables will be set up as a paper cutting area, another for rolling beads and so on.
We reckon we can crank out about a thousand necklaces a day.
We are going to working the Filipinos quite hard. We
really trying to think outside the square here are going to have
fifteen hour shifts, with an eight hour break in the middle.
This has be designed to allow the girls a little more freedom in
their work hour. Lets take Juicy's (real name) shifts as an
example. She will start at 4 p.m. one day, 3 p.m. the next and so on.
This will ensure an fair means of splitting up the night hours.
The will have to take toilet breaks on their own time. We
have a business to run here!
One of out catch phrases at GrassRootsAsia.com is Bahala Ba Halal Ha, which
means "All For One and One for All" in English. We want our workers to
feel as if they are part of the organisation. Each worker will be
required to pay 5000 pesos ($NZ 125) to work for us. This is
quite a bit of money for the average Filipino so we will be "loaning"
the money and they will pay us back as they work for us. Some of
the young girls may choose other ways to pay Fergs and I back.
There are more ways the money to pay a loan back...
Once you crunch all the numbers (including loan repayments)
this means that each worker will be on about 35 pesos a day, or about 88
New Zealand cents. "Whoa, hold on a minute there sonny", I hear the
nay-sayers shouting, "That's too low." Well, it is much more than
they are getting now, and it does allow them the chance to save just a
little and open up some options for them. See Sachs' comments above. The necklaces will sell for $US 10 each.
We will be purchasing an S.U.V. with the initial cash
injection supplied by the girls. An S.U.V. is essential to our
business. We well need it to transport Fergs and I around, as
well as purchasing paper, plastic beads and so on. It will also
give our organisation that air of professionalism.
I'm excited about GrassRootsAsia.com. It is a good
example of how the white man can ease off his burden and really to some
great business in developing countries. If you're interested in
helping out in this initiative, feel free to contact me here.
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Do you like the work that I am doing?
Wanna help in a real and tangible way?
Then visit GrassRootsUganda.com
and purchase some crafts made by Ugandan ladies. 100% of the profits
are returned to the ladies
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Questions? Comments? Try contacting
me.
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(c)
2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you
want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.
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