Inina Craft Agency

October 24, 2009

Travelled via the little miss sunshine bus (our name for the VW van we rented at the Maseru Airport, across the border into South Africa and made the three-hour trip to Pietermaritzburg. We met with Duncan Hay of UKZN and his wife Vicki for dinner. We enjoyed an excellent conversation regarding the Inina Craft Agency and their assorted current projects, including the high end Swedish bracelet. Duncan assures us that BOH is still by far the number one customer of Inina. And they are negotiating a deal with a fair trade Chinese manufacturer to potentially replace or supplement those beads currently sourced in the Czech Republic.

This will contribute greatly to Inina's ability to be nimble when sales grow as the national campaign back in Canada grows! Inina is already in good shape for sharp sales increases, with 70+ women as core members and another 300+ in the region who can quickly be pressed into service for large orders.

Individual crafters actually net 100R per day in an area where the average daily wage is about 20R.

And because its a cooperative they do some neat things around income levelling. I had always heard that a crafter could make 50 bracelets per day. In fact, the average crafter could produce far, far higher numbers. Inina management limits the production per crafter to 50 per day because this quantity produces a high daily wage, because it means more ladies are working, and because each of the women members of this co-op is either infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. So its important that they earn money and are still able to spend the time necessary to raise their families and care for their relatives who are ill. 

After parting company with Duncan and Vicki, we made an early night of it, returning to our B&B for some extra sack time.