Gone Rural
It is the time of the day right now where the sun is hitting the tips of the sugar cane like a mini flashlight is inside each of the stalks lighting them up from the bottom. This is the view I have from the design room where we are currently camping out with our computers trying our best to build structure around one woman’s dream so that her passing doesn’t mean that the 730 women who depend on Gone Rural for their livelihood must also give up theirs. Jenny started the business over 20 years ago selling only a few baskets and placemats at a time from a small table in the market. Back then, there was no grand plan. The business grew more or less organically with a high level of personal touch and love for the women in these mountains beyond the sugar cane. Over time, a business manager was added to expand their market and also a designer that created “western friendly” designs with a fine eye for detail and quality. Operating procedures were defined as they went. And the modest of size of orders allowed shear enthusiasm and a determination to do good to cover any missing pieces.
These days the order sizes are in the thousands and the number of products multiplied by the possible color combinations demands more attention. This is where Lara, Dana, and I come in. Lara works most directly on helping Gone Rural sort out their operations in everything from procurement and inventory, to the database that tracks school fees disbursements for Gone Rural’s non profit arm, boMake. Dana is working on defining the raison d’etre of boMake. Gone Rural has always been a social development organization at heart with the belief that sustainable income through for profit business is the best way to ensure impact and lasting change. Gone Rural created boMake (“more women” in siSwati) as a way to formalize the social services Gone Rural has been extending to its women artisans since the beginning. She is there to make sure that the organization is well position to provide health care and education to these women and their families through a portion of Gone Rural’s profits as well as external grants. These women each support over 10 additional family members so the reach of Gone Rural is easily 8,000+. I have been tasked with building financial safety nets and extra economic pillars under these women by designing a savings and eventual lending scheme. The microfinance industry here is not developed as compared to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The geographical distance between these 730 women also poses a barrier to implementing lower cost group savings and lending schemes. And HIV/AIDS means monthly household costs fluctuate with sickness and funerals in unpredictable ways. I have less than a month to figure out a solution that is feasible given their resources and timeframe. It is not clear how I will pull this off just yet but if I keep working with a bit of Jenny’s spirit and determination, I am sure success is the only possibility.