Currently employing 33 Malawian tailors full time, but with ambitions to grow this to a team of 100, they earn a good wage and can support their families, without any charity donations or handouts.
We do all of this by saving waste from landfill and re-purposing it into useful items that will last a lifetime.
Our Ethos is to:
• Value people; our team and our customers, and treat them fairly.
• Value resources; we reduce waste, recycle wherever possible and care for our environment by being
frugal in the way we work.
• Be creative yet practical in our innovations; we only make useful products you need,
designed to last a lifetime.
The History of Cycle of Good
Cycle of Good is a trading initiative raising funds for our parent charity
Krizevac Project (1115608) you can read all about
Krizevac here
In brief…
Cycle of Good is the latest initiative to join a wonderful hub of social enterprises created by our charity over the past ten years. Situated in Chilomoni Township, Malawi, the enterprises together employ 500 people who have trained and worked to create businesses that fund a vital children’s centre. The centre provides early years care and family support to around 2000 vulnerable children at any one time. It’s a quiet revolution of skills building and economic growth in a country with no welfare state: if you don’t earn, you don’t eat.
What’s even better is that many of the enterprises are part of a circular economy; reusing unwanted or waste products from the UK and turning them into profit. We’ve shipped thousands of books, bikes, computers and sewing machines, which are refurbished, used for training or sold to create a surplus that funds international standard childcare and the building of new schools.
Back in 2010 we were gifted nearly 20,000 bicycles from Royal Mail. We chose to refurbish a limited edition of 5000 bikes in our UK warehouse; they are sold as Elephant Bikes, and each one sold pays for another bike to be sent to Malawi. That project continues to this day, we have approximately 150 left. Additional donated bikes being gifted by Halfords and so far we’ve shipped well over 30,000 rescued bicycles to Malawi.
Over the years, the most popular enterprise by far has been the tailoring school. Over 3000 local women (and the occasional man!) have completed a diploma training course and kept their donated sewing machine at the end.
Doing our bit to save the planet
Cycle of Good builds on all of this amazing work to make something even more wonderful. We collect waste inner tubes and other materials saved from landfill, ship them in our containers, filled with donated bicycles, to Malawi where tailors carefully craft what was waste into useful and beautiful items.
✔ The Malawian workshops are made from soil
eco-blocks and are all powered by the sun
✔ We work with the Chilomoni forestry
service to plant trees on our local mountain
✔ All the off-cuts of inner-tubes and
lorry curtain are made into soft furniture for use by local schools
✔ We ship by sea in shared container space
✔ We use plastic free packaging on all our items
✔ We use recycled haberdashery (like zips) wherever possible
✔ We make functional products to last a lifetime:
with a lifetime guarantee on all our sewn items
Our Team In Malawi
MAY
BIKOKO
Cycle of Good Manager, Malawi
FELIA
NYIRENDA
Supervisor (Cutting)
ELITA
KAMOTO
(Room Supervisor)
LENIA
MTALI
(QC Supervisor)
FELIA
NYIRENDA
Supervisor (cutting)
ELITA
KAMOTO
(Room Supervisor)
LENIA
MTALI
(QC Supervisor)
Tailors and Assistants:
AGNESS
PHIRI SIKANONA
IDA M'DALANGWA
BALUTI
CECILIA CHISAKA
CHIYEMBEKEZA
CHISOMO
LOMBOLA
YAMIKANI MKWINDA
CHANDIYANG'ANA
VIOLET
TAULO
MARTHA
NALIVATA
CHARITY
KAMWAMBA
CHIKONDI
MOYO
TIYANJANE
KAWINA
DOREEN
MAGOLA
JEAN
MANGULENJE
CHIKONDI
MOYO
ETHEL
PAWALA
SAKINA
MANDOLO
ROSE CHILEMBA
MAKWANGWALA
CECILIA
NKHOMA
VICTORIA
SAYENDA
MARTHA
PETER
TIYANJANE
KAWINA
GEORGINA
NASIYAYA
JANE
WHITE
SUSAN GIDEON
KHUMALO
CHISOMO
FLORENCE CHIWAYA
PATUMA
JOHN
HANISHA
MSOPA
GELENA
KAPISENI
ANNA ATUPELE
KASSIM
MAUREEN
MASHONI
MARY
KAMWENDO
Cycle of Good Manager, Malawi
MATILDA
JALASI
Deputy Manager
FELIA
NYIRENDA
Supervisor (cutting)
ELITA
KAMOTO
(Room Supervisor)
LENIA MTALI
(QC Supervisor)
Tailors and Assistants:
AGNESS
PHIRI SIKANONA
IDA M'DALANGWA
BALUTI
CECILIA CHISAKA
CHIYEMBEKEZA
CHISOMO
LOMBOLA
YAMIKANI MKWINDA
CHANDIYANG'ANA
VIOLET
TAULO
MARTHA
NALIVATA
CHARITY
KAMWAMBA
MARIA
THOMSON
EVELYN
KALIBWINO
JEAN
MANGULENJE
ETHEL
PAWALA
CHIKONDI
MOYO
SAKINA
MANDOLO
DOREEN
MAGOLA
ROSE CHILEMBA
MAKWANGWALA
CECILIA
NKHOMA
VICTORIA
SAYENDA
MARTHA
PETER
TIYANJANE
KAWINA
GEORGINA
NASIYAYA
JANE
WHITE
SUSAN GIDEON
KHUMALO
CHISOMO FLORENCE
CHIWAYA
PATUMA
JOHN
HANISHA
MSOPA
GELENA
KAPISENI
ANNA ATUPELE
KASSIM
MAUREEN MASHONI
All of the Cycle of Good team in Malawi live in the township of Chilomoni. They have all completed a two-year diploma in Tailoring and Design; using old sewing machines donated from the UK, they learned all techniques necessary for dressmaking. Since then, they have completed further training focused on accessories production, offered by international volunteers. Regular, reliable employment is essential (although hard to come by) in Malawi. With no welfare state, if you cannot work, you cannot support your family.
Cycle of Good pays above the national living wage and offers full employment rights such as paid holiday and pensions. Agnes (Tailor) is a widow who has two children, says “Working with COG has seriously changed my life in a way that I have acquired some skills for example in sewing, and I can say that on my own I am an expert in my career. And talking about the salary, I am now able to support my family”. Cecilia also explains the transformation for her family life, “As a woman, working with Beehive has helped me to acquire some sewing skills making me an expert in my career. Meanwhile, the salary we earn by working as tailors at COG really helps in providing my home basic needs.” Cecilia has three children aged between 10 and 17 years old.
They’re a close-knit team who have a say in the way they plan their work; they chose to have a collective reward system whereby if all monthly targets are achieved, they all get a small bonus, if the targets are missed, no one gets the reward. This has led to an ethos of coaching and supporting each other rather than competitiveness! In 2020 three team members were promoted to Supervisors; knowing that there are opportunities for development, has increased aspiration and enthusiasm. We genuinely could not be blessed with a more enthusiastic and generous group to work with.
MEET THE TEAM UK
VINCE
OWEN
Trustee & MD
ZOE
KASIYA
UK Manager
BHAVNA
NAIK
Finance Manager
MICK
HAWKINS
Bike Mechanic
ALAN
COPELAND
Bike Mechanic
TOBY
OAKES
Workshop Assistant
SARAH
GRIFFITH
Product Designer
ROXY
IQBAL
Seamstress
GURJAP
SINGH
COG Volunteer
COUNTLESS
LOVELY VOLUNTEERS
VINCE
OWEN
Trustee and MD
ZOE
KASIYA
UK Manager
BHAVNA
NAIK
Finance Manager
MICK
HAWKINS
Bike Mechanic
ALAN
COPELAND
Bike Mechanic
TOBY
OAKES
Workshop Assistant
SARAH
GRIFFITH
Product Designer
GARETH
NICKLIN
Inventory Administrator
ROXY
IQBAL
Seamstress
COUNTLESS
LOVELY VOLUNTEERS
We’re based in a former pottery warehouse in Stoke on Trent which we rescued from dilapidation in 2017; it’s here that we collect all the donated resources needed for Malawi. It’s also where we transform 1000s of former postal delivery bikes into Elephant Bikes and get creative with Cycle of Good product design. You’ll mostly find us in scruffy jeans loading a 40’ shipping container before its life-transforming trip to Africa.
In keeping with our passion to save the planet, everything is pretty basic; we all put on jumpers before we’ll put the heating on and you’ll often find one of the mechanics fixing up an old tool instead of rushing out to buy a new one. We are helped by many volunteers who generously give their time in return for a plastic-free cup of tea in a chipped old mug, very occasionally there’s some homemade cake to go with it too!