Markets for ethical goods and services originating from Africa have remained resilient throughout the economic downturn. According to Rob Harrison, a Director at Ethical Consumer Research Association, “The annual Ethical Consumer Markets Reports have shown significant growth each year since the onset of the recession. This clearly demonstrates that the trend towards ethical buying is not a luxury which consumers choose to drop when the going gets tough, but an important long-term change in the way people are making buying decisions.”
3.2. Situation Analysis
Faces of Swaziland is a two-fold project targeted to create labor and raise funds for the fight against AIDS and poverty. With the collaboration of the Kingdom of Swaziland, an art exhibition will be put together and will showcase (as its central theme) faces of the people of Swaziland and the stories behind these faces. The exhibition has two goals, the first is to collect funds to initiate the enterprise and second, to create awareness and buzz through the paintings showcased in the exhibition.
The exhibition will serve as the platform to attract key national and international actors, NGO’s, private enterprises, non-profit organizations and agencies that want to join forces with the Kingdom of Swaziland in the search for solutions to current economic and social issues. The ultimate goal of the exhibition is to create an agency from a Bottom-Up Perspective where the key methodology of operation of the institution will incorporate direct feedback from the poor. In this sense, key business and developmental strategies will be implemented from a stand point that arises directly from the necessities of the people.
Additionally, rooted from the paintings showcased in the exhibition and under the supervision of the newly created agency, a diverse number of products will be developed through workshops and training programs. These products will be produced and elaborated by women and men living in rural areas in Swaziland thus bringing labor opportunities and new sources of income into areas where unemployment rate are the highest.
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The importance of the exhibition is to create a vehicle for capacity building, rather than just create an event for a charitable cause. In other words, the purpose is to create an social enterprise that will bring social empowerment and business sustainability for the poor and give people control over their lives. Despite the noble intentions behind charities, in many cases these organizations merely provide momentarily solutions. In fact, charities don’t give people control over their lives, what they actually do is the exact the opposite, it makes people dependent. Therefore, what these trainings and workshops will do is to enable the poor to create products that will leverage their underappreciated strengths, put them in a position to be more proactive in generating income, and take care of their health and well-being of their families.
Furthermore, through strategic alliances and partners, the agency will help the aforementioned products access key markets. Markets are of central importance in the income strategy of most rural households. “Markets are where, as producers, they buy their inputs and sell their products; and where, as consumers, they spend their income from the sale of their products”
(IFAD, 2003). Due to this fact, poor people living in rural areas in many parts of the world often highlight that the reason they cannot improve their living standards is that they face serious difficulties in accessing markets. Moreover, low population densities in rural areas, remote location and high transport costs present real physical challenges in accessing markets and selling their products. Finally, low education levels and the lack of understanding of the markets, their limited business and negotiations skills, and their lack of organization that could give them the bargaining power they require to interact on equal terms with other, larger and stronger producers, all present obstacles that allow poor people to make a descent living.
Thus, the social enterprise role can be summarized as follows:
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Figure 1: Social Enterprise Main Roles
1) Capacity Building Agency: Based on the painting from the exhibition, the social enterprise will provide a series of workshops and trainings that will teach poor people how to do beautiful, marketable and timeless items for houseware, clothing, living, lounging, storage and cooking. The workshops will teach a wide array of techniques and skills on how to develop and produce these products. Furthermore, these products should be sold and marketed emphasizing how these products are made and who makes them. This way, customers will get to know more about the agency, its goals and objectives and, as how it is providing opportunities to the people of Swaziland.
The agency can work in collaboration with many local and international artists and designers who can come and teach these workshops. Additionally, local artisans can hone their skills and produce better products.
2) Collect funds for AIDS and Poverty projects: As of recently, it has been acknowledged that there is a crucial role between rural poverty reduction and their relation to market accessibility. It is precisely through this mean Through the sale of products produced by the artisans associated with the enterprise, the social enterprise will collect a percentage and destine these funds towards AIDS and Poverty fighting projects.
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3) Promote products: As mentioned before, a key role of the enterprise will be to create a united platform that introduces the products made by poor people into larger and significant markets, either through direct agreements with large retailers or through an e-commerce site.
4) Manufacturer: As a capacity builder, the enterprise will teach poor people how to create products that can be sold in large markets. Therefore, the enterprise will be able to manufacture goods that will be sold and distributed into larger center and/or markets.
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social media of fashion house Bottega Veneta. This enterprise consists of creatives that seeks to provide a platform to help promote and curate African and African-inspired content through an e-commerce shopping site, a supporting agencyand an artisan
produced fashion collection, called FASHION RISING COLLECTION, launche d in support of V-Day's One Billion Rising. They focus on creating opportunities for empowerment, education and employment of artisans and creatives.
2. Ethical Fashion Initiative: This is wide-reaching program of the International Trade Centre, the Geneva-based joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. This initiative’s goal is to connect marginalized artisans- the majority of them women from African and Haitian communities-to the international fashion industry. They provide leading designers around the world with high quality, desirable fashion products, while simultaneously empowering impoverished producers through access to gainful employment, knowledge and skills. They provide a route out of poverty through fulfilling work while facilitating the fashion world’s desire to be ethical and environmentally conscious.
Furthermore, they operate under the Fair Labor Association guidelines so as to ensure fair wages, workplace safety, security, freedom from harassment, and the right of collectively bargaining their products into larger markets.
3. Vivienne Westwood Ethical Fashion African Collection: This is a collection sold by the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood which sells eclectic bags and accessories. This collection is produced in collaboration with Ethical Fashion Initiative and is designed to support the work of thousands of women micro-producers from marginalized African communities. The designs are created using recycled canvas, reused roadside banners, unused leather off-cuts, and recycled