To continue from last week's post on my day visit with Bug Zoo, after our visit with Rugaya at her home, we next went to visit a CMT setup. CMT means cut, make and trim (which is the term for an outside contracted group that puts a garment together). Although this group only did the "making" part of it. Bug Zoo had cut all the pieces in-house and this particular group sewed all the pieces together into the final product, just as I see it when I get my shipment (pic at right is a winter item I will be ordering later this year).

In the same way that Rugaya works from home with a group of ladies to do various beading, embroidery, etc..., the CMT group had originally worked at factories in Congo that closed down and immigrated to South Africa and are now working locally together in the back of a friend's home (see top left pic).

With all the sewing machines running and the radio, it was a very loud setup in there. The ladies were all working happily and said how they loved working for Bug Zoo. I could tell it was geniune as they were giving Conway a hard time joking around with him. I am very proud with what Bug Zoo is doing to help the economy locally in South Africa even though he could make the clothes cheaper by importing to China. By the way, I wouldn't be importing these goods via the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) if they were being made in China.

Before we left, Stuart brought out a good point in that these garage type setups are the model that will help the economy in South Africa. I believe he is right, but the question is, can you find enough business to maintain enough small garage type setups to reach the whole nation?