{from Julie}

In the past couple of weeks, Mercy and I have had the chance to visit the International School of Uganda.  The only thing we love more than getting up at 5:45am is getting to hang out with a bunch of fourth graders to talk about Sseko!  The fourth grade classes at ISU are currently doing a 6-week unit on businesses and the marketplace.  The central idea is: business arise and evolve to meet the needs for the community.  As employees of a small (but rapidly growing!) company here in Uganda, we were thrilled to talk about our experience.  The group had tons of questions ranging from market surveys to finance/ accounting to why don’t we make a sandal for boys.  We thoroughly enjoyed the interactive discussion about things that work, things that don’t work, and what we’ve learned along the way.  After leaving, Mercy and I both commented on the students’ eagerness to learn.  Any worry we had about boring the students or running out of things to say was quickly forgotten.  Shortly after our first visit, we went back to take some pictures with the young women of the class donning our product.  And here they are!  Thanks to the fourth graders of ISU for welcoming us and being enthusiastic with us about our company! 

no. i am not talking about my most recent bout of malaria (Boooo! Hisss!)

i am talking about Sseko. we here at Sseko eat, breathe and drink Sseko. yes, if Sseko was a baby, i would be that mom. you know, the one with a whole Facebook album devoted to a 60 part series of pictures of baby eating Cheerios. (my mom actually refers to Sseko as her grandbaby. seriously. i think it is cute. and great because it buys me some time before she wants the real deal.)

that being said, i dream about Sseko.

a lot.

not only the daytime dreaming and scheming i usually talk about, but also just good ol' fashion nighttime R.E.M. dreaming. in fact, while in Uganda, Julie and I would wake up a lot of mornings and compare what brilliant (read:trippy) ideas or things we had accomplished in our dreams that night.

i just recently had the BEST Sseko dream I have ever had. since i share a lot of my daytime dreams with you, i thought i would do the same with this sub-conscious gem.

it was pretty simple. but basically, we discovered a rare tortoise-like animal. this animal shed its shell (similar to a hermit crab) and moved into bigger shells as it grew. well, when you took a little hammer and chisel and cracked open the shell of this Sseko creature, inside was a star-like shape comprised of 7 perfectly made, beautiful pairs Ssekos. (the smaller the shell, the smaller the size. just in case you were wondering about the logistics.)

the next scene of the dream involved Julie and I and the seven Sseko girls all dressed in old-school safari gear, hunting for abandoned Sseko turtle shells.

i woke up and told ben, we HAVE to find this animal.

i was disappointed when he informed me that i was, in fact, dreaming.

(but secretly i will keep looking)

Sseko had a pretty great weekend down in College Station, Texas at the first annual Masterpiece Conference. Our all-star lead ambassador, Cameron Crake, did some major crowd control. One girl tied another girl up with a Sseko strap to make sure she got her size before they ran out.

Just kidding.

But it was pretty crazy. There was a section of the conference called "Part of the Solution" that feautured Sseko and several other awesome groups to help raise awareness and support for women's issues across the world. It is so exciting to be a part of a growing generation of young women excited and determined to make a difference.

Thanks to all the wonderful women who put on this wonderful conference and let Sseko be a part of it. If you live in Texas, make sure you sign up for next year.

 {...and if you know of--or attend--a similar conference or gathering...we'd love to hear about it!}

Here is a little snippit of life with the Sseko ladies from Julie. Enjoy!

There are a few things I miss most when I’m living or traveling abroad.  The first is obviously my people- Pa, Ma, friends (shout out), etc.  The second is probably Subway chocolate chip cookies (straight from heaven, folks).  And until February 28, the third is the Olympics.  Winter Olympics are not, as you may imagine, very popular in this place.  So when I had the opportunity to watch some highlights on a real live tv this week, I jumped at the chance. 

As it so happened, Mercy was spending the night with me, so the lucky girl got to come with. What followed was better than I ever could have imagined.  Mercy had never seen any winter sports before, so as much as I casually tried to prep her, she had no idea what she would be watching.  Throughout the night, some of my favorite quotes were as follows:

“WOW! Maybe I should start training!  I could do school, Sseko, and training if I had some ice.”

During a partners figure skating routine, the man lifted the woman and: “What?!  Is that REAL??  Or MAGIC?!”

During figure skating again: “I thought it was cold in there—how can she be wearing that??”

After she learned the rules of downhill skiing and the blue line outlining the course:  “That man went outside the blue line!  PUNISH HIM!”      

And lastly:  “Where are the blacks?  Why are all these people white?”

The rest of the time was filled with gasps, tons of laughter, and questions.  Watching the Olympics with someone for the first time is as good as it sounds, especially when that someone is Mercy.  It was a perfect night.  I think I also gave her more chocolate that night than she’s had…ever.  But watching the world’s fittest people perform extreme physical feats wouldn’t be the same without a Cadbury bar being shoved in your face, right?



When people ask me what I do, I have two responses, depending on my mood. The first is to reply, "Well, I am a cobbler," hope that they chuckle with confusion while I slip away. {That would be my occasional anti-social response.}

The second is to actually answer the question like a normal human being.  I often use different words and phrases to help people understand the vision of Sseko.  I'll say something about an income generating project or a social enterprise or an initiative. And sometimes I keep it simple and say something to the effect of, "Well, I started a company in Uganda that…"

Something interesting happens when I use that particular phrase, "..started a company…" that doesn't happen when I use other phrases. There is something about a "company" that seems impossibly big or ambiguous or mysterious. There is always a bit of surprise when our thoughts about what a "company" or "business" is collides with an actual human standing in front of you. (Especially when that human looks like a 17-year-old and most likely has chipped toenail polish and tangly hair.)

But I think this surprise is an interesting picture of how a business goes from being a group of individuals, coming together to achieve a common goal to an "other."  An entity.  Something ambiguous and untouchable. A machine of sorts.

And it is that ambiguity and "otherness" that contributes to a lot of the way we do business these days. I think anytime we can diffuse the responsibility of our decisions, it becomes a lot harder to make good ones. Decisions that put others before ourself. Decisions that we are proud of. Decisions that are hard and require sacrifice and a vision that goes beyond what is good for me, right here, right now.

That is why we have to have seminars and public speakers and workshops and college classes devoted to this mysterious thing of "corporate ethics."  There is something about people coming together and forming a group, that it seems, makes it substantially harder to just do the right thing.

I think this goes both ways, from the consumer and corporate perspective. The more we can distance ourselves from the "stuff" we buy, the easier it is to diffuse the responsibility we have and to ignore the consequences of the way we do business. We buy our stuff from a company. And that company is big and elusive and ambiguous. So we pass that responsibility on to them. I buy my stuff, spend my money, and cross my fingers that my actions are not having a negative effect on the people I can't see behind the curtain. 

And then there is the company side. If you are part of this entity, it becomes easy to say I am just the _____(fill in the blank.) Just this tiny part of a big old entity that will do what it does with or without me. Making ethical decisions is not really my responsibility. That is ____'s (fill in the blank) job. I will do what I am told and cross my fingers that this action doesn't have a negative effect on the world I can't see behind the curtain.

And there you have it, a whole lot of people, closing their eyes and crossing their fingers. And a lot of companies acting as curtains and a lot of consumers willing to pass off responsibility because their can't possibly see beyond the almighty curtain.

Well, I refuse to buy into that. I for one won't close my eyes and cross my fingers. And I am certainly not up for building a team of people that close their eyes and cross their fingers. This means we are trying to build a community of people that really believe their decisions, no matter how small, matter. That they are in fact, co-creators of this product, this brand, this company. That a "company" is not some big, mysterious entity. But rather, made up of individuals. And that those individuals matter. That they make a difference. That we value them first as humans, then as employees, customers and suppliers. 

There will be no closing of the eyes and crossing of the fingers, but instead a proactive and sacrificial posture as a company that realizes Yes, the things we do HAVE an effect. And we do have a choice as to what that effect will be. We will do away with the curtain and say, please look at us. Look at every part of this chain that connects you to this "stuff" and then say yes. Or no. But please, look. Take responsibility. Bring down the curtain say hello to Oz.