The ideas which may save the world come from crazy minds like mine that are trying to figure out how to set up a fabric dyeing factory in Mozambique to boost-start the economy and reduce their dependence on imports.
In Northern Mozambique, primarily Cabo Delgado province, all the women wear skirts all the time. They are no ordinary skirts, they are capulanas, wonderfully decorated pieces of cloth that serve at least 50 purposes, based on a running list that we made while there. However, the fabric is imported.
How can something so ubiquitous, so seemingly original, so country and culture-specific actually not be made in the culture that uses it?
I noticed that the fabric was dyed in Tanzania, which, for logistical purposes is close to northern Mozambique, but it also holds different tribes and different cultures.
Pemba, Mozambique is a very underdeveloped city which resembles a large fishing village. Its residents have recently moved into the 20th century by getting a Shoprite supermarket open there, rather than just the two little general stores it used to depend solely on. However, we are wondering, how can this little city develop more?
There is money being pumped into the city, its a port city, with ships coming in regularly. However, the money stays in the hands of a handful of people, and those people are usually not Mozambican (they’re Arab, Kenyan, British, Indian…). So the challenge is, how do we put money into the hands of the villagers to increase their spending power and reduce their poverty level?
We can educate them, we can even build a university there, but what happens when the kids graduate? There are no jobs. We can teach them how to use a computer, and, great, they now can do facebook and email, but what next? There are no jobs.
So far, there are 2 restaurants which have taken in a few kids from Iris’s children’s village as apprentices. That’s wonderful for those kids!! What happens to the other 150 as they age out of the system? Where will they go? They won’t go back to the villages. They won’t likely become fisherman or farmers, as they haven’t learned those skills.
What have they learned? Crafts, pottery, mechanics. Some may have the opportunity to learn sewing as a trade. Others will translate for visitors. But Iris can’t take 150 young people translating and selling crafts on the beach. We need to think concrete and in terms of particulars.
So we start a fabric dyeing factory. Well, obviously, we would either need a heavy-duty generator or the machinery would need to be able to be operated without electricity. The plain fabric would come in from China or elsewhere in Asia. The dye would too, most likely. But the workers, they would be Mozambican. And we would be able to sell the Mozambican-dyed capulanas to various seamtresses and tailors in nearby villages. And sell it at a discounted rate to vendors in Pemba. And we would be able to employ a fairly large number of women to do the work.
Then comes the other questions- what about providing electricity there? We could build and off-shore wind farm. We could install the cheap solar panels Chris is making once he gets the model right.
What about sanitation? What about recycling? What about trash disposal? Clean outhouses?
Development has to be holistic. Microloans are wonderful, but how will anyone in Pemba sell goats milk if the people who would buy it have no money either? Would Shoprite buy locally produced products like eggs and milk? Would they sell?
And so I am left with more questions than answers. More dreams and hopes than plans. And more of a need to go back and find the reality that the people there need, find what they are looking for. What development would look like to them- would it mean running water or electricity? Would it mean jobs and schools for their kids? Would it mean clean clothes and food on the table? Would it mean no trash in the streets and a clean latrine? Would it mean Mozambicans getting better education and running the ports on their own? What would a Mozambican say development was for them?
