Our work at Swopa so far

Our work at SWOPA so far

We have been working with an organisation called SWOPA (Sirigu Women's Organisation for Pottery and Arts). SWOPA’s main aim is to empower women by supporting them to earn an income. They achieve this by encouraging members of the community to make baskets, pottery, paintings and many other crafts; and then sell them on to tourists that come and visit the compound. This is beneficial to the women of Sirigu because they can do this alongside their daily routines and create extra income for themselves and their families. 

Sirigu used to be a hub for tourism until recently; the ebola crisis and many other factors severely reduced tourism in the area. This is why International Service decided to start a project here. The project’s overall aim is to bring tourism back to the area and help streamline and make the business more profitable.

In our group we have been working on a sales strategy report; trying to find other outlets that we can sell our products to. We tried to get in contact with many other businesses but found that this was very hard as there is only so much information you can gather on the internet about shops etc in the local area that sell different products. We would have loved to travel around the area to find these places but the rules that we were set by International Service dictate we cannot travel. So to overcome this problem we now have 3 days where we can go to nearby cities and do the research. Hopefully we can find some appropriate outlets and set up business links for SWOPA. This will be challenging in just 3 days but we will do our best.

Another activity we have been undertaking is more about streamlining the business. We have organised and rearranged the whole stock room and come up with a method for SWOPA to manage their stock. This has gone well and we are hoping to start training the staff members on the new methods we have employed. The stock system was a problem which was identified by the director of SWOPA so we wanted to find an appropriate resolution.

 

(This is a picture of the oldest member at SWOPA) 

By Gideon and Joe  

N.B. I claim full copyright to both of these pictures and do not wish for ICS/ International Service to share, distribute or use them in any way other than use in the blog. Joseph D’Ambra.