SOKO Kenya: Fashionable Feet/Non-Profit

SOKO Kenya is a non-profit project started by Joanna Maiden and her husband in February 2009 with the aim to create sustainable employment for people in a small coastal town in Kenya.

SOKO provides training and employment for people in tailoring, sandal making and jewelry. SOKO produces for international fashion brands providing them with the opportunity to have their products manufactured in an environment that offers a living wage and empowers people to pull themselves and their families out of poverty. Nolcha contacted Joanna to let her speak a little about her talented artisans and how SOKO came to be.

Charles and his family live in Ukunda. Ukunda is a small town on the south coast of Kenya in the Kwale District. The Kwale District holds the highest level of unemployment in the country with 50% living below the poverty line.

Charles spent three years as a security guard at a local hotel. He worked 12 hour days and earned Ksh 150 per day. Charles wanted to provide his family with a bright future and be able to pay for his son to have a good education but through this current employment he was not able to even cover his living costs. He made the decision to try to see if he could change his future and try something new. Charles’ cousin was a shoemaker and offered to teach him. After learning the basics in sandal making spending several months saving money in order to buy the equipment and materials required to start the business, Charles would make the sandals in the evenings after work and sell them at the local market on his day off.

He found the demand much higher than he expected and continued to work and sell sandals for several months whilst saving everything he earned. Finally, months later he took the leap quitting his job and renting a small shack in the local market to sell his sandals.

Charles has been in this market for the past year and has built a large customer base of local Kenyans. On a good day Charles is able to make Ksh 500 ($6.50) profit. All profit is invested into buying more materials to make more sandals.
He mans the shop whilst making sandals all day from 7:30 am to 8 pm.

Always developing new styles, his recycled tyre sandals are always in demand. The ground is very rough, especially in the rainy season, and the recycled tyre sandals never wear out. He has never had to mend or resole a pair.

I first met Charles in February 2009 at his shack in the market. I asked him to make a few samples for me and was impressed by his motivation and determination to make 100% quality products. I started to visit him a few times a week to show him images of Western style sandal designs, visit leather and bead suppliers together and develop new products. One day I took him to visit a sandal factory that produce for the export market – it was a real eye opener for him and I clearly saw his goalpost move that day. He said “ Jo, we can do that, we can do what they are doing.”

Every time I went to see him the quality and standard of his sandals were improving.

One big stumbling block for him was that he didn’t have any lasts or accurate means to measure the size and shape of the sandals. I asked him to find out if it was possible to buy lasts locally - we found one man that sold second hand lasts for Ksh 700 ($9.20) each. For all the sizes that Charles required it would cost Ksh 2,800 ($36.80). This was beyond his means.

We came to an agreement that I would buy the lasts and he would repay me per sandal that I bought.

We bought the lasts and the sandal quality improved once again: we had consistency. Within one month Charles had paid back his loan.

As his demand grows his business developes. He has always worked alone so I encouraged him to consider employing someone to assist him. I explained that although it was an investment he would see his output increase dramatically. The next week I arrived at his shop and there were two people working with him – his wife and a local beader. He doubled production overnight. His wife, Doreen, took me to one side and said “I want to thank you. I was at home idle because I was not able to find any work and we had money troubles. You have helped us and I am so happy. Thank you for giving us business we are so busy.”