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About three months ago I sent an introductory email to one of the largest mining companies in the world, for confidentiality's sake let's call them GoldCorp. I didn't really expect much to come of that. A month later I got a call from the procurement manager at GoldCorp asking me to come in and meet with them. Emmanuel and I did a killer presentation to GoldCorp's top engineers, who then took us out to lunch. I was shocked and greatly humbled by how they welcomed us.
Long story short, after a visit to the Magazine and some long nights preparing proposals for them, GoldCorp has awarded us a contract. The truck above is one of about 35 in GoldCorp's fleet. We are manufacturing from scratch two sets of stairways, railings, and walkway platforms. Basically we are building the access system for the driver to make his way from the ground up and into the driver's cabin.
Read about SMIDO's social enterprise model here.
Read about the Suame Magazine context here.
Our vision for SMIDO is quickly becoming reality! This project is the reason I almost went insane, and it's the reason I've been hungrily working 12-15 hour days for 2 weeks without a day off, more pumped each day I wake up. Emma and I are singlehandedly managing a team of 10, a budget of nearly 25,000 USD (yeah, yeah, pretty small), and implementing quality and safety measures that the Magazine has never seen before.
I would lie if I said it were easy. I've had to send plenty of apology emails and phone calls on behalf of SMIDO and for my own mistakes, learned the hard way that taxes have to be paid, learned (and still learning) to manage both money and my patience, and found out that if you sit on a metal floor while welding (and your machine is grounded to the same metal floor) AND you happen to have your hand on the workpiece, you will get zapped good (yes, 4 years of engineering and I didn't realize that).
So why is this project so exciting? Well, the reason GoldCorp came to visit the Magazine a month back was to get an idea of our potential. They had a project up their sleeves for us to retrofit about 30 of their big trucks with similar walkway/railing/stairway assemblies. At close to 30,000 USD a pop including shipping from the US, that's nearly 1m USD. $1,000,000. One Million. Whoa. What? WHAT?!
To GoldCorp that's a $1m purchase order for truck ladders. Business as usual. To the Magazine however, that's $1m of desperately needed development. A $1m direct injection of capital into the Magazine in the form of material procurement, sub-contracting, paid wages, and all of the profit put towards education programs. That's $1m towards developing sustainable livelihoods. $1m towards improving health, nutrition, and sanitation. $1m towards school fees for the families of the artisans. $1m towards building a movement that will raise the Suame Magazine forever out of poverty and prove to the world that business CAN and WILL end poverty! (How many NGO's would kill for $1m of project funding from donors? And how sustainable is that $1m donor relationship in reality? Business 1, Aid 0.)
My heart beats faster just thinking about this. I've come to believe that what poor people need most is a way to make more money. Many development projects treat the poor as if they were incapable of fending for themselves, just sitting around waiting for whites to give them free food and clothes and schools and hospitals and goats. I feel that's one of the greatest barriers to development. It creates dependency and crushes local capacity.
Building sustainable livelihoods, on the other hand, creates opportunity. With increased income comes the food, the health care, the school fees, choice, and most importantly, dignity.
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This GoldCorp project is about halfway done with delivery of the first half set for Thursday. This is a pretty key milestone. When the GoldCorp execs left my office last month, they weren't too impressed with the Magazine's capacity. They told me how appalled they were at the safety standards, and didn't see how we could make 30 units to be of reliable quality. Emma and I pretty much gave them our word that we could make the impossible happen on time and asked for their confidence in SMIDO and in us. That's what got us this "small" test contract. The future is bright if we can get this right.
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Thanks for reading, now here's a glimpse into my life...
Our workshop. Working outdoors is beautiful each glorious sunny day. The down side is work grinds to a halt when it starts to rain.
Our masters Bonsu, Owusu, Bombay, and Emma work to align a set of stairs.
An underlying goal of the project is to improve skills of the artisans. Sharing tips, measurement skills, and teaching our staff to read CAD drawings are all important steps in making the Magazine more attractive to the formal sector.
After carefully reviewing the engineering drawings, our master Paha goes to work on finishing a workpiece.
Bombay trying to align some of the supports. Note to self: never buy crap made in China. Ever. Our tri-squares aren't square.
Yours truly enjoying a pineapple break. Another good thing about the Magazine is that ladies walk around all day selling popcorn, pineapple, water, rice, fish, kebabs, spring rolls, cosmetics, clothing, and anything else you could want. Note how grubby I look. I haven't had time to shave in 2 weeks.
Back on the stairway, our master Kosovo installs a support bracket.
This lovely lady mixed all of our paint by hand, but shyness hid the beautiful smile.
Finally, we matched the "Caterpillar Yellow" from the paint charts. Just like at Home Depot.
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