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In 2009 I was taken to visit two soap projects being organized by Walter Sisulu University as pilots for rural development. The idea of these projects was that the university would make its scientific knowledge of chemistry available to start projects which involved poor rural residents in cooperatives – making soap and marketing it to relieve rural poverty. The university support for this project is an aspect of “Service Learning” for students from Business and Health courses. The projects are also funded by the insurance company, Old Mutual. Old Mutual paid for the chemical ingredients that supplied the soap makers and the university actually provided these chemicals. The village council must have made some village land available for the first project and the second project was held in buildings in a police compound.
Sophumela Soap Project
The first project was hosted by Sophumela, a remote rural village, near to Mthatha. At the project, I met two women and a baby. The donors supplied the ingredients for making soap. The beneficiaries were trained by the university and by students from the university. Of the twenty original members only nine are now left. They had a tap established on their project site. The project was sited on two large plots in the village, the size of a house stand. One site had the tap and the building for the project. The other was fenced and was used by the beneficiaries to grow some crops.
The main problem for the project when I visited it was that the intended buyers for the soap were not actually willing to buy the product. The Clinic was one intended buyer and the local community the other. The problem was that the soap was too expensive for the local community members to buy it. Poor people did not buy soap at all. The school could have been interested but the project did not have a supplier number so the school could not purchase soap from them. The problem with the Clinic was that after they purchased their first order they did not have any further demand for soap for some time to come.
The failure of the project was explained to me in the usual way. Some of the project members are lazy. They expect the university to find a market for their product. There were workshops provided in which they were trained in marketing. People were just not buying their soap and it was really up to the beneficiaries to develop a market. If they did that, then the project would be working as intended.
The university is always telling the project members that this is the last time the university will supply the ingredients free of charge. This puts pressure on the project to become self funding.
The people on the project complained there was not enough protective clothing being provided by the project donors.
When they got their first sales (I think these were from the clinic), they made R30 000 but all this money was spent by the beneficiaries. They ‘ate the money’ rather than saving it to purchase the next lot of ingredients. They used it to buy sugar and similar household requirements.
I regard this project as a typical community group project with the kinds of problems I consider in my book. The basic issue is that it is unlikely that these very uneducated poor villagers can solve the marketing and administrative problems that come with the project without ongoing support from the university. There are three basic problems. One is to establish a market, given the fact that these villaers are living very remotely without any cheap means of transporting their product to a large centre or point of sale in a town. They would have to negotiate with a supermarket or with local traders to make it possible to develop a market or might have to develop a relationship with a government body as a supplier. The second problem is that they would need to manage the purchase and transport of a set of complicated chemical ingredients from a large city in the Eastern Cape. At present these chemicals are being supplied by the university. It is very unlikely that these villagers could actually manage this task let alone do so in a way that made financial sense. The third problem is that the immediate income demands of the beneficiaries make it very difficult for them to sell their product and store the money to make necessary purchases to continue their operation over the long term. This problem is likely to create conflicts in the group as particular individuals make use of the group’s funds to deal with their own personal cash problems.
The second soap project – Mthatha township
Members of this project were designated a different kind of soap to make from that being made by the beneficiaries of the first project. These township beneficiaries are making perfumed soap but are complaining that there is no market for this. They would prefer to have been set up to make simple sunlight type soap blocks or dishwashing liquid.
In “Service Learning” final year students have to go back to the community and spread the knowledge they have learned. This is supervised and graded. So, the projects here in this squatter settlement included teaching people computer skills and basic business and health skills – topics like how to keep taking TB medication, how to keep clean and healthy when there are 6 to a room.
I asked the participants why they had left the rural areas to come to town. They had come to town to get a job. They felt that a disadvantage was living in these crowded conditions. The rural areas are quiet and you can grow some of your own food. I noted that in this neighbourhood there were some kitchen gardens growing silver beet and potatoes.
I asked why there were no men in this project. The answer was that men would not be involved unless there was a monetary payment. They had not known the members of the group before this project but had become friends. There were five women there.
This second project was similar to the first. The university scientist had got them to do fancy soaps – for hand softening, shampooing and the like. But there was no market for that in the township. In the township people were using blocks of sunlight for laundry and washing up. They believed they could have undercut the price of this common soap at SPAR [the local supermarket chain] if they had been beneficiaries in a project which manufactured these cheaper kinds of soap.
Their chemicals for making soap had been stolen – even though this was taking place in a police compound! They had repeatedly asked the university to supply another set of chemicals but this had not happened. They also wanted training in how to make up the soaps that would sell in the township.
Discussion
Following my visit I heard that the university had decided that these projects were not working and was intending to remove its financial and in kind support from both projects.
My concern with this decision was that the university would lose a lot of credibility with these communities which might be hard to rebuild to initiate another project. The women the university had involved in both these projects are the most likely women to be opinion leaders in their community and are also the people who are most trusting of the university’s intentions. You could build on this social capital to develop further interventions.
Suggestions for the township group
The analysis of the problems given by the beneficiaries in the township projecct seems quite apt. The kinds of soap they have been providing cannot be marketed to their communities. If the university could provide instructions and ingredients for simple soap blocks, they would be able to sell these at a cheaper price than the supermarket. They would also need a more satisfactory security arrangement to prevent theft. This could be tried out – at least one or two more rounds of ingredients to see if members are able to save sales money to purchase the next round of ingredients. They would also need assistance in how to purchase their own ingredients cheaply when they reach this stage. If the membership are unable to make this economic technology work, I am confident that they might agree that the project is unworkable without hard feelings towards the university being the outcome. If the university does not wish to continue the project with these people, the members of this group should be given an opportunity to discuss the matter and express their views.
Suggestions for the rural group
I have a slightly different view of the problems for the rural group. For that group, the problem of marketing the product seems insuperable. I also doubt whether the participants have the economic skills necessary to make a project like this work in the long term – without university support. Consequently I believe the university should buy back the ingredients that remain from this group and donate them to the peri-urban group. The money should be spent to organize a different project on the land that has been allocated to the group (about home stand blocks – probably about 2 500 sq metres in all).
The current resources of the group are these two blocks, a tap with a water supply and a lockable building – a shed or workroom.
One of these two fields is now being used to grow a crop. The other area could also be planted out. The advantage of these two blocks (including the building on one of them) is that they have a water supply that can be used to water seedlings.
This leads to two main options for the rural group.
A. Fodder and fuel wood crop
It could be suggested to the group that they grow a fodder and fuel wood crop. Bunds and swales should run across the two blocks on contour. About one metre across with soil piled on the down side and 0,5 metres deep. Use an A frame to mark the contour lines to ensure bunds are level across the site. These will trap rain water and ensure that the plantings survive. Trees should be about 2 metre spacing.
The project members who are still in the project could be given this resource to sell the wood in a few years. For example, eucalypt, bamboo, Casuarina, Grevillea robusta, Acacia, Albizia.
Legume intercrop species should be planted between each other variety of fuel wood species. These should also be trees suitable for fodder for chickens, pigs or goats. For example Moringa oleifera, Leucaena, Sesbania, Calliandra, Crotalaria, Tagasaste, Acacia, Albizia.
B. An orchard of mixed fruit, nut and legume trees
Nuts – Almonds.
Fruit – Apricot, peach, plum, mulberry, mandarin, orange, fig, persimmon.
Between the fruit trees, it would be ideal to plant a legume intercrop – for nitrogen and also mulch and fodder – Leucaena, Sesbania, Calliandra, Crotalaria, Tagasaste, Acacia, Albizia.