Rotary District 9800
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Village Women and Children project
The Rotary Club of Kew’s soap-makers’ training program, established in 2005, is a successful grass-roots micro-economic initiative. It has provided village women with the ability to feed and clothe their children (in a country where infant mortality and malnutrition are amongst the highest in the world), and has also bolstered their self esteem and dignity.
This Village Women and Children project has also provided a capacity building model of a self sufficient village cooperative for other villages to replicate. The Baucau soap-makers have trained other village women who have set up soap making cooperatives in Los Palos, Suai and on the outskirts of Dili.
The 100% natural soaps were initially manufactured as baby soaps for Kirsty Sword Gusmão’s Alola Foundation’s Maternity Packs. Packaged in Timorese hand-made recycled paper and tais ribbon, the soaps are now also available at retail outlets in Timor-Leste and are sold at a premium here in Australia.
Amazing projects such as this need our help to be realised! Money raised from Australian sales is re-invested in Timor-Leste to buy ingredients for the next batch of soap, and support the livelihoods of oil-pressers, soap-makers, paper-makers and weavers. Any excess is donated to the Alola Foundation for the Maternity Packs program. It costs so little to make a big difference in East Timor.
$1 per day feeds a family of eight.
Any growth in soap-making will benefit both the local economy and public health in Timor-Leste; the project is designed to enable soap to be sold at cost to the poor and local residents in markets throughout the country. In Timor Leste, one of the poorest countries in the world, soap is rarely used; research by the Mayo Clinic confirms the link between hygiene and poverty (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hand-washing/HQ00407). With an average income of less than $US1 per day, few people can afford to buy the imported soaps that are available in shops in the larger towns.
These soaps are made from 100% natural vegetable oils; they do not contain any animal products.
Soaps cost $5 in cellophane, $8 in a box, and a double boxed soap costs $12.
For further information, please contact us or contact Jill Forsyth from the Rotary Club of Kew.
