Mission

G-lish exists to help impoverished women and youth develop sustainable sources of income, regenerate the degraded environment, and develop projects that create a prosperous and safe future, hence the tagline: “Income Generation, Re-Generation, Next Generation.”

G-lish is inspired by the idea of language or philosophy. G stands for:

• Generation: income, re-, and next
• Ghana!
• Green and…
• Global

G-lish is a sustainable social enterprise fortunate to be recognised for its efforts in social enterpreneurship by winning a SEED Initiative Award. SEED defines social entrepreneurs as:

“entrepreneurs that…working towards a greener economy also tackle poverty, marginalisation and social exclusion.”

How does a sustainable social enterprise work? Profits generated by a social enterprise are re-invested in the organisation to further its mission, unlike conventional businesses in which profits are redistributed to shareholders.

As a sustainable social enterprise, G-lish has three bottom lines. Each are equally important.

1. Profit
2. Social impact
3. Environmental sustainability

A typical business judges its bottom line by profit alone.

In G-lish’s case, 100% of income, which includes all profits from sales of products and volunteer contributions, are reinvested in G-lish with the aim to grow G-lish to reach more people in need and make an increasing economic, social, and environmental impact in rural Ghana.

G-lish Bolga basket makers at work

Here are some of the ways we achieved our objectives since July 2010. In other words, this is the difference you have made by buying a G-lish basket:

Environmental:

• Used 105,000 drinking water plastic bags in basket production which = 367 kilos of plastic. Forecast to triple in 2012.
• Roughly consumed the same weight in scrap fabric which, together with plastic, would normally be discarded into waterways or combusted in fires.
• Prevented CO2 emissions and pollution in waterways and soil by consuming plastic and cloth that otherwise would be burnt.
• G-lish uses no chemicals in the production of its recycled products.
• G-lish uses very little electricity in its operations—to be quantified in a sustainable audit.
• Planted 523 seedlings in basket making communities and around preschool and high schools in rural Ghana.
• Held tree planting and environmental workshops with high school students in green clubs.
• Developed tree watering teams to ensure the survival of as many seedlings as possible during the 8 month long dry season.

Social:

• Providing income to 45 producers in the community who, in turn, support 3-8 people, on average.
• Helped producers to buy bicycles, get medical treatment, including life-changing operations, and send children who were kept at home to school with income from recycled baskets.
• Report a reduction in the instances of violence as a result of reduction in stress due to more regular incomes in basket making households—ongoing survey to be published with annual report.
• Developing domestic violence workshops to work with men and male teens to reduce the instances of domestic violence in the community using community-specific conflict resolution techniques.
• Trained 10 youth in basic Windows computer operations.
• Work with three high schools to undertake Green Clubs (environmental) activities in the community to generate respect for the environment, reduce pollution and support students to learn leadership and team work skills.
• Leading youth in a youth mentoring program for high school students in which successful members of the community, who come from a background of poverty, return to talk about how they overcame obstacles imposed by poverty to achieve their success to inspire students to continue their education and not give up when the going gets tough.

Economic:

• Paying 3-5 times the minimum wage to producers in Ghana—a fair wage–and roughly double-triple what straw basket makers receive after costs.
• Providing access to markets by cutting out the middle men traders and accessing foreign markets that producers would otherwise be unable to access.
• Upping the ante to increase income for all basket makers in the Upper East Region, not just G-lish producers, by educating basket makers about fair prices, paying fair prices (much higher than traders pay straw basket producers), thus encouraging the traditional straw basket market to increase payments to straw basket producers so they also receive a fair price for their work, thus influencing the livelihoods of thousands of people in the Upper East Region.
• Employing three full-time Ghanaian staff.
• Working with 45 producers who otherwise undertake subsistence farming and petty trading to survive.
• Helped G-lish producers open savings account with rural banks for the first time in their lives.
• Helped G-lish producers form savings groups in order to receive loans from the rural bank based on group lending power.
• Pay for the plastic and cloth that seamstresses and local establishments collect for G-lish to produce recycled baskets, thus also providing income for local traders and their families.
• Pay “cutters” and “twisters” to cut the plastic and cloth, and twist the plastic and cloth, into twine for the basket weavers to make baskets.
• Partnered with shops in Sydney and Melbourne to sell recycled Bolga baskets.
• Establishing partnerships with other international partners—soon to be announced.

Members of the Dulugu JHS Green Club preparing to plant seedlings

We have several creative and original projects in incubation stage for 2012. Watch this space. We continue to work in all these areas and will add health, domestic violence and conflict workshops, and more environmental, youth and income generating activities to our major projects in 2012.We will also undertake a series of workshops in Bolgatanga proper on fair trade and fair prices in the broader basket making communities in 2012 to influence the market to pay fair prices which will have a huge impact on the lives of thousands of families in this region. Read more about that at Fair Prices for Bolga baskets.