Our Story

Picture a remote African village.

Grass huts, loin clothes, face paint, Dr. Seuss-like wildlife. 

Picture Africa. Everyone knows this, right?

Enter an American motivational speaker. He’s arrived on an altruistic journey to engage the nuanced African culture and community.   He’s taken aback by the vast fields of greenery, never ending rows of fruit trees, and the profound  inaccuracy of the previously mentioned African cliche.  Somehow–he doesn’t remember how–but he finds himself discoursing with the local  leadership.  These community leaders are strikingly articulate. They comment about how the community produces so many resources, but they have no way of creating a product from such things. They say, “If we just had a facility to turn these resources into sellable products, then the financial dynamics of our village would completely transform.”  The speaker, awestruck, remembers this and he twists and turns it through his head during the rest of his African journey.

Facilities. Resources. Production.
Facilities. Resources. Production.

When he returns to the States he decides “I have to tell this story.” So he did.  He told that story to an ostensibly large, respectful audience. As the story ended and the crowd dispersed, one audience member, deeply moved, approached him afterward and said, “I’ll build it.”

Then one day this same motivational speaker told the story about telling the story. He told the story of the community leaders, the resources, the moved audience member. Turns out, we were in that new audience.  We heard the story  about telling the story.  We were deeply moved.  Thus, just like the ancient African tradition of storytelling, we decided to tell our own story.  

A similar story.  

A story about a story.  

A story about Africa. 

About facilities, resources, production. About the meshing of idealistic hope and realistic means. About cotton and fair wages and fashion.  A story that isn’t finished.  It’s only just begun.  And now, as you read this, you have become a character in our story.  Even more, the significance of your role is entirely up to you.

As this story unfolds, remember that this is a story told about a story that was told.  Rememeber this story and tell it as part of your own.