Piece #2 Chembo
Sydney’s long time friend, Chembo Muwaya had all of these skills and was already interested in the project. But she lived In Ndola, a six or seven hour busride away. I was surprised when she expressed serious interest and agreed to come to Livingstone to discuss things. I was even more surprised and delighted when she agreed to join us as the third team member.
From the moment we met it was chrystal clear that she was a perfect fit: smart, energetic, good humored and passionate about setting up a successful business for the women and for ourselves. Her description of how to organize the business end was clear and authoritative. She was sitting next to me on the couch in the living room of the guest house at the Mama Bakhita, which became our meeting room. I touched her hand and looked at her in wonder. “Are you real?”
She moved to Livingstone the next week and set up a three month business plan, three months being the minimum needed to reach the breakeven point. She took inventory, figured out what each doll cost in materials, how many dolls we needed to sell to break even (50 a week) and how many to make a profit (more). One big unknown was how many finished dolls the women could complete in a given time. We had been operating since 2010 in a piecemeal fashion, because I was selling the dolls myself at Christmas and summer sales and had to limit quantity. I could give them two big orders a year, paying them several thousand dollars each time, which was great but not consistent enough to sustain them year round. They have their small businesses to try and make ends meet, but often it is not enough.
We had no idea how much time they needed to produce one doll
