Secondary School Scholarships in Buduburum Refugee Camp, Ghana

In 2007/2008 UHI provided scholarships to 12 secondary school students in the Buduburum Refugee Camp. With the camp’s closing in the summer of 2008, we suspended our scholarship program.

 

Water Cooperatives

 

UHI, along with its partners at Mediators Beyond Borders and Pump Aid successfully trained 50 students in the Buduburum Refugee Camp in the building of water and sanitation systems.  This training resulted in two students being hired as full-time employees of Pump Aid. In 2009 Pump Aid will continue to work towards building water and sanitation systems throughout Liberia.

 

Liberian Women’s Used Clothing Project

*Due to logistical problems, UHI has postponed the implementation of its used clothing project.

The mission of this project was to create sustainable employment opportunities in the second hand clothing industry for women in Liberia, while providing good quality clothing to the Liberian people at a discount price.

Why start this project?

Second hand clothing is a commodity in high demand that can be used to create jobs. The United States Department of Commerce lists the second hand clothing industry as one industry that holds the most promise for U.S. exporters to West and Central Africa.

However promising, the reality of the current second hand clothing industry in Liberia is that clothing wholesalers sell poor quality clothing at an inflated price to a population already struggling to survive. By exporting good quality second hand clothing from Philadelphia and importing this clothing to Monrovia, UHI would eliminate the inflated price of clothing, providing better quality clothing to residents and creating employment opportunities for local women.

Life Cycle of the Majority of Second Hand Clothing Located in Africa:American donates an old T-shirt to a local charity.The T-shirt cannot be resold to benefit the local charity so it is then sold along with other unwanted clothing to a wholesaler for 3 cents per pound. The wholesaler sorts the clothing into three piles: Premium (for Latin America & Asia), Africa A (for wealthier African countries), Africa B (for the poorest African countries). The old donated T-shirt is designated to the pile for “Africa A” and shipped in a large container to Africa. Upon its arrival in Africa, the container is transported to a used clothing importer, who marks up the price of the clothing three to four hundred percent. A local businesswoman purchases a bale of clothing from the importer without seeing what is inside. She takes the bale containing the old T-shirt to her shop. The local businesswoman sells the old T-shirt for the equivalent of about $2.00- $3.00.

Life Cycle of Second Hand Clothing Donated to UHI:UHI volunteer picks up clothing,UHI volunteers sort clothing into piles according to clothing item, packs them in vacuum packed bags and ships them to Liberia for $500 per 35 cubic feet. Implementation partner receives barrel of clothing and transports them to the UHI shop in Monrovia, Liberia. The participants in the small business program sell the clothes for a fair price to local residents as a way of supporting their families. The participants are able to keep a percentage of what is earned from the sale of the clothing with a percentage being returned to UHI to help in paying for shipping costs.

For more information on the used clothing industry please see, Packer, George. “How Susie Bayer’s T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back,” New York Times, March 31, 2002.