Lead International Focus Story

FEATURED ORGANIZATION: LEAD International LEAD International would say this should be a story about people helping themselves. And so it is. But, because LEAD has been the catalyst in helping the people of Guinea-Bissau help themselves, a few words about LEAD.

Guinea-Bissau is among the poorest countries in the world. Its schools operate only episodically. Its hospitals don't diagnose AIDS because they have no medicine to treat it. Few NGOs operate there. It ranks last out of 178 countries in ease of doing business. Years of violence both before and after its independence from Portugal in 1974 have left its people desperately poor and disconnected from each other. Into this environment, in 1995, a chance invitation to travel brought Michael Blondino, a minister at the Lighthouse Church in Vancouver, Washington. Michael is a people person, a guy whose personal strength is developing and sustaining relationships with others. And so as he traveled around Guinea-Bissau more than a decade ago, he saw poverty, yes, but he also saw people. Determined to put his skills to work to help sustain those relationships, he founded LEAD International, a 501(c)(3) organization.

Like many non-profits, LEAD began as a relief effort providing food and clothing. But it took no time at all for LEAD to see that what people wanted and what they needed was a sustainable way to earn income. In 2000, Blondino and his business partner, Mario Martinez, set about to use non-profit ethics to create for-profit organizations that would provide a profitable revenue stream for the people who would own them and work in them. Turning to the region's predominant agricultural product, the cashew, they set up two trade schools to train selected volunteers to do the primary processing of white kernel cashews, removing the nut from the shell. Business and ethics training were an equally important part of the training. Students were allowed to enroll based on interest and ability and those who did well were invited to become candidates for business ownership and capitalization. These new owners employed the other graduates, already trained in hygiene, productions expectations and quality control, and organized rural cashew farmers from their regions.

LEAD provided the new companies with equipment, the hand-operated husking machines and the sorting machines, and set up a corporation, owned by the producers, to market their raw cashews. The early marketing efforts, while effective, were disappointing because producers in Guinea-Bissau, operating under the euro, were competing at a price disadvantage with producers in countries operating under the dollar. This caused LEAD to change its business model from supporting marketing raw cashews to marketing consumer-ready nuts. Today, the LEAD-associated ventures do all the processing, roasting, salting and packaging in country. The income improvement, in a country where the average person lives on $14 per month, has been striking. At port, one 10 ton container of raw cashews has a value of approximately $11,500. Processed, roasted, salted and packaged, the same container earns at wholesale $140,000 and up to $300,000 retail. Each LEAD company can produce one such container annually.

According to Blondino, each employs around 16 people whose average salary is now more than five times the national average. Today there are 15 LEAD companies from all over Guinea-Bissau involved in different stages of the production and processing of cashews, three of them owned by women. 500 students can be trained annually at the trade schools, forty percent of whom are women. With the help of LEAD, the marketing company now sells its owners' cashews both locally and in Europe, Dubai, and is starting an association with Blue Mountain Organics in the United States. More than the nut of the cashew is being marketed. The apple is being processed into cakes, bread and juices. Most notably, the LEAD companies are now moving into the Trail Mix market, and have their eyes set on jellies and juices.

LEAD believes its work has demonstrated that the cashew export industry can be used to break the cycle of poverty for many in Guinea-Bissau and that this initial step in its mission is nearly done. Over the next three years, LEAD expects to raise $1.4 million dollars to help the venture expand. During this same time the businesses will earn more than $2.6 million each year in gross annual revenue. By 2012, LEAD believes it will no longer need to rely on capital raised from donations. The existing companies will themselves be able to provide the additional capital and the know-how to expand in Guinea-Bissau. The model could be replicated many times over in the cashew sector alone. LEAD will continue to provide record-keeping and oversight through its five local staff for the foreseeable future.

Blondino says that he is not aware of any other countries in Africa using this model of sub-sector development-- training people who return to their region to organize farmers and create companies that process their own products and then work cooperatively to market them. LEAD has just begun a similar process in the Casamance region of Senegal, working with cashew and peanut farmers. Within the next five years LEAD expects to be in three different countries with at least two more on the horizon. In twenty years LEAD hopes its model will used throughout West Africa. While LEAD is a faith-based organization in its ethics and values, it works with people of all backgrounds, ethnicities and religions. Through its approach it has shown that business can be a positive framework for people to partner together despite their religion and race. For the future, Blondino wants to put his human relationship skills to work networking within Global Washington not only to highlight the success of LEAD's efforts, but also to learn how others are facing similar issues in sustainable development.