Vote with your feet: SAWA shoes

Amidst all this talk of elections, candidates and party leaders, a small company urges us to cast a different kind of vote, a vote with our feet. SAWA wants to start a new chapter in the African story and we examine its candidacy, Eleni Sardi writes.

Tired of the classic old stories of preconceptions and misconceptions about the continent, SAWA shoes has tried to start a different project that aims to challenge the traditional North/South industrial flow of raw materials coming from Africa and being transformed elsewhere into finished products.

The SAWA sneakers are made in Africa with materials sourced locally and using local expertise to produce footwear that’s built to last. The production is based in Cameroon and two of the people involved there are Michel Abbé, the pattern maker who made the Dr. Bess pattern, and Yves Bessala, after whom the shoes were named. ‘Bess’ for Bessala and Dr. because he always wears a white coat that makes him look as a doctor, as SAWA introduces him to the world.

The SAWA project is inspired by the omnipresence of second hand clothes sent from developed countries and their input into the African economy, only SAWA decided to challenge the usual economic model reversing the flow from the North to the South: as opposed to the thousands of containers entering African countries everyday, the SAWA project has embarked on an inverse journey towards the Western markets.

SAWA believes in setting the foundations of a sustainable economy using the local genuine knowhow and raw materials from different African countries: canvas from Cameroon, leather from Nigeria, laces from Tunisia, rubber from Egypt and packaging from South Africa. The project also supports other African products like soap from Cameroon, authentic school notebooks and matchboxes also made in the country and sturdy bags from Nigeria that are used for the SAWA shoeboxes that you can also be used for shopping or laundry.

The project believes that producing in Sub-Saharian Africa is already a strong ethical commitment but they do not wish to stop there. The sneakers are made with canvas from organic cotton and SAWA tries to source more and more materials locally and reduce its environmental footprint. Because Cameroon is a country with limited manufacturing capabilities, it is more difficult for the company to use exclusively organic and ethical sourcing channels. SAWA is looking for ways to improve in that area having already decided to change manufacturers and working with one that organizes a pension plan for his employees.

As Frederic of SAWA puts it, ‘in a nutshell we have no choice but to take things as they are and to improve them step by step’. Greenmystyle recognises the effort and will be keeping up-to-date with the latest SAWA developments.

Read the SAWA story here.