Hands on
Jun 01, 2010
<b>Sseko brings hope through sandals</b><br>LIZ Bohannon walked through her Kansas City apartment, counting sandal after sandal, lace after lace. They covered the floor of her office, cluttering the space where she walks.
Sseko brings hope through sandals
LIZ Bohannon walked through her Kansas City apartment, counting sandal after sandal, lace after lace. They covered the floor of her office, cluttering the space where she walks.
These sandals are not Bohannon’s to keep. She sells them to send young Ugandan women to universities. Bohannon is the founder of Sseko Designs, a company created to provide some of the top female students in Uganda the opportunity to earn enough money to attend college.
Bohannon travelled to Uganda in September 2008 as part of a master’s degree programme with the Missouri University school of Journalism. She went to write for a quarterly magazine published by the Cornerstone Leadership Academy, a programme for talented young students from under-privileged backgrounds to grow as leaders. But during the first month of writing, her ideas about how to help Uganda began to grow.
She visited the girls’ school regularly. As her relationship with the girls became stronger, so did her recognition of their leadership potential. But there was still a snag. “The vision for these students to be the top in the country stops without having an income,†she said.
Bohannon thought about returning to Missouri and raising money for them, but she did not want to stop with a cash contribution. She found a solution she thought could be bigger than simple aid.
“It was born out of the fact that they needed a job, not a cheque,†she said. So, she began brainstorming ways to give the women a fair chance to work. However, there were many questions about where the market for those solutions might be.
It was not until more than a year ago that Bohannon began to question the notion of aid. It would be better, she thought, to help the women meet their needs rather than simply provide for them. That is the idea behind the sandal business. Bohannon employs women to make sandals in Uganda. The sandals are then sold in the US because that is where the fashion interests and disposable income meet.
The cause for their business model is social, but its propelling force is profit. University student representatives countrywide, together with Sseko’s web site have allowed for a grassroots approach to selling its sandals.
People are wearing Ssekos in Virginia, Oregon and New York. The sandals cost either about $40 (sh85,000), according to the website. Customers can buy additional straps to switch in and out of their sandals. The designs are priced at $7 and $9. Since their May 2009 release, Sseko has sold about 1,500 pairs of sandals.
Eventually, Sseko would like to help every woman who graduates from Cornerstone Leadership Academy to spend nine months working for the company before they attend university, but that is not possible until the company grows. She hopes investors will see the effect their venture could have. If they invest $10,000 (sh22m) for example, and get back $12,000 (sh26m) maybe they will consider reinvesting in another company to help even more.
The girls currently working for Sseko each earn between sh150,000 and sh200,000 per month. Eighty percent of the money will be put into a savings account to pay for their tuition. Their wages are not intended to help them live off Sseko forever but to pay for a college education.
As the company with a broad vision it continues to spread wings of hope across two continents, the drive remains alive for the women of Cornerstone to get the education they deserve. And as the first three students that Sseko helped move onto a university and the next six employees begin, Bohannon is seeing what a business can do when the benefits of profit extend beyond pocketbooks.
Columbia Missourian
LIZ Bohannon walked through her Kansas City apartment, counting sandal after sandal, lace after lace. They covered the floor of her office, cluttering the space where she walks.
These sandals are not Bohannon’s to keep. She sells them to send young Ugandan women to universities. Bohannon is the founder of Sseko Designs, a company created to provide some of the top female students in Uganda the opportunity to earn enough money to attend college.
Bohannon travelled to Uganda in September 2008 as part of a master’s degree programme with the Missouri University school of Journalism. She went to write for a quarterly magazine published by the Cornerstone Leadership Academy, a programme for talented young students from under-privileged backgrounds to grow as leaders. But during the first month of writing, her ideas about how to help Uganda began to grow.
She visited the girls’ school regularly. As her relationship with the girls became stronger, so did her recognition of their leadership potential. But there was still a snag. “The vision for these students to be the top in the country stops without having an income,†she said.
Bohannon thought about returning to Missouri and raising money for them, but she did not want to stop with a cash contribution. She found a solution she thought could be bigger than simple aid.
“It was born out of the fact that they needed a job, not a cheque,†she said. So, she began brainstorming ways to give the women a fair chance to work. However, there were many questions about where the market for those solutions might be.
It was not until more than a year ago that Bohannon began to question the notion of aid. It would be better, she thought, to help the women meet their needs rather than simply provide for them. That is the idea behind the sandal business. Bohannon employs women to make sandals in Uganda. The sandals are then sold in the US because that is where the fashion interests and disposable income meet.
The cause for their business model is social, but its propelling force is profit. University student representatives countrywide, together with Sseko’s web site have allowed for a grassroots approach to selling its sandals.
People are wearing Ssekos in Virginia, Oregon and New York. The sandals cost either about $40 (sh85,000), according to the website. Customers can buy additional straps to switch in and out of their sandals. The designs are priced at $7 and $9. Since their May 2009 release, Sseko has sold about 1,500 pairs of sandals.
Eventually, Sseko would like to help every woman who graduates from Cornerstone Leadership Academy to spend nine months working for the company before they attend university, but that is not possible until the company grows. She hopes investors will see the effect their venture could have. If they invest $10,000 (sh22m) for example, and get back $12,000 (sh26m) maybe they will consider reinvesting in another company to help even more.
The girls currently working for Sseko each earn between sh150,000 and sh200,000 per month. Eighty percent of the money will be put into a savings account to pay for their tuition. Their wages are not intended to help them live off Sseko forever but to pay for a college education.
As the company with a broad vision it continues to spread wings of hope across two continents, the drive remains alive for the women of Cornerstone to get the education they deserve. And as the first three students that Sseko helped move onto a university and the next six employees begin, Bohannon is seeing what a business can do when the benefits of profit extend beyond pocketbooks.
Columbia Missourian