Africa's First Fair–Trade Garment Manufacturer Is A Model For Women's Empowerment

Chid Liberty freely admits that, as a kid, he didnt really understand where he came from. The son of an exiled Liberian diplomat, he lived his life abroad in Germany and the United States, where his dad taught African history. Surrounded by a social circle comprised largely of other African diplomats and their families, it never occurred to the budding entrepreneur the privilege into which hed been born. I thought Africans drove Benzes and dressed up every day and went to the best schools, he says of his worldview at the time. It even messed up my orientation on things like race, because we had all different kinds of people working in my house as a kid--German, Indian, Turkish--and all of them were serving us in some way. So I just kind of grew up thinking that Africans were at the top of the food chain.

It wasnt until around seventh grade, when he read about the actual conditions of life in Liberia, that his perceptions began to change. When I read only 2% of people have a telephone, I was so confused, he says. I started to really understand my place.

When Liberty was 18, his father passed away, and he started to itch to go back. But it was the efforts of Nobel Peace Prize winners Leymah Gbowee, President Ellen Sirleaf, and the Liberian Womens Peace Movement--which helped end 15 years of civil war--that set the wheels in motion for his return. I just thought that was really cool from a social change standpoint, Liberty says. I was in Silicon Valley working with tech startups as a finance person, and I thought, All right, well, I think I can apply that skill to providing economic opportunities for women. And decided to come here and try, in an industry that I knew absolutely nothing about.

Liberty and Justice, the company he co-founded with Adam Butlein in 2010, is now Africas first fair-trade-certified apparel manufacturer, making tops and bottoms for brands like Prana, FEED Projects, Haggar, and other large buyers in the U.S. The workers at the company's factories in Liberia and Ghana are 90% female, and paid 20% higher wages than their peers on average. Together, the employees also own a 49% stake in the enterprise, while L and Js 51% gets channelled back into community development.

We really try to be worker focused, Liberty says, and we actually think thats what gave us a cutting edge at the end of the day: having really devoted workers. People dont really believe in these types of factories in Africa, because they believe that African workers arent motivated. I think thats hogwash.

Still, hes not exaggerating when he says he knew nothing about the industry at first. For example, when he first sold the idea to investors--convincing some heavy hitters in the impact capital world to travel to Liberia to see what they were creating--he didnt exactly have everything up and running. In fact, he didnt even have a factory yet. I knew my aunt had a building that I might be able to use, he says. But no lease on the building, no. No nothing. Just some emails back and forth."

Eventually, he did raise money from those same investors, but it took more than a year of additional relationship-building to repair the damage and do the convincing.

Some of the company's early mistakes, however, turned out to be unlikely advantages. We hired an amazing consultant who came to set up the factory, train the workers, so on and so forth, Liberty remembers. But as soon as they got in there, they told us how backwards we were.

They had done pretty much everything wrong, including hiring an initial workforce of women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. For the typical garment factory, Liberty says, the average age is probably 23. I just assumed any able-bodied person could sew. I didnt realize that, in China, its like an Olympic sport, and thats how they get the productivity numbers. Our trainer felt like we might as well get rid of everybody.

Instead, Liberty decided to bite the bullet and really invest in the workforce he had in place, a risk that has indeed led to competitive productivity levels, as well as pretty inspiring workplace vibe. These older women really set the culture of the Liberian Womens Sewing Project, our first factory, Liberty says. They come to work an hour early--we never asked them to do that--they pray and sing together before they get on the machines, theyre very serious about the details of how your uniform should look, and you just wouldnt have gotten that out of a bunch of 19-year-old girls the first time so thats a mistake that turned out pretty well.

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Africa's First Fair–Trade Garment Manufacturer Is A Model For Women's Empowerment