6 July 2021
Cycle of Good is helping to end poverty in one of the poorest communities in the world. Currently employing 20 Malawian tailors full time, but with ambitions to grow this to a team of 100, they earn a good wage and can support their families, without any charity donations or handouts.
Cycle of Good Ethos:
Cycle of Good is the latest initiative to join a wonderful hub of social enterprises created by the charity over the past ten years. Situated in Chilomoni Township, Malawi, the enterprises together employ 500 people who have trained and worked to create businesses that fund a vital children’s centre. The centre provides early years care and family support to around 2000 vulnerable children at any one time. It’s a quiet revolution of skills building and economic growth in a country with no welfare state: if you don’t earn, you don’t eat.
What’s even better is that many of the enterprises are reusing unwanted or waste products from the UK and turning them into profit. Cycle of Good sales have paid to ship thousands of books, bikes, computers and sewing machines to Malawi. Once they arrive they are renovated, used for training and sold to create a profit which also helps to run the children’s centre.
Over the years, the most popular enterprise by far has been the tailoring school. Over 2000 local women (and the occasional man!) have completed a diploma training course and kept their donated sewing machine at the end.
Cycle of Good builds on all of this amazing work to make something even more wonderful! CoG now collects waste inner tubes and other products, ships them in containers to Malawi and gives them to the tailors who carefully craft useful and beautiful items. CoG also carefully sources other Malawian made items, especially when they are made from recycled and sustainable materials.
More recently Cycle of Good have worked to make a fully recycled, reusable range of face-coverings which help to keep us all safe in these uncertain times. What’s more, the face coverings are all fully recyclable, so when you’re ready for a new one, you can send it back to CoG and they’ll make sure it’s turned back into usable material again.
Oh and did we mention they also sell coffee! Purchased directly from a small Malawian Coffee Cooperative; Cycle of Good coffee is available as freshly roasted beans or ground, you can have a cuppa while thinking about how good you’ve been in supporting people who really need a hand up in life.
CoG ships all these amazing products back to the UK where they are sold to raise income. The profits pay to send more containers to Malawi and all surpluses directly fund the work of the children’s centre. It’s why we call it the Cycle of Good!
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