Township Trades is the brainchild of Chris Shaw, a London based entrepreneur who believes that Africa's way out of poverty is trade not aid and was prepared to put up his own money to prove his point. He wanted to give the brightest, disadvantaged kids the lifeskills they needed to become entrepreneurs in their own right.

The first step was to establish a social enterprise that would support kids in the Khayeletisha township near Cape Town and he felt that soap making for Township Trades was the way to go. He stumbled across us on the web and presented Melinda with the challenge of turniing the dream into a reality.

Our brief was very broad: help find and plan a workshop, write the job descriptions, source all the equipment and ingredients, formulate the products to EU standards, teach the trainees soap making and assist with fund raising and marketing ! This we did.

Today, Township Trades is managed on the ground by Claire Van Zyl and Sharon Homans, Sharon worked for several years as Production Manager at Melinda's soap company in Wales and has also worked in Nigeria and South America on social enterprise projects.

One year on and the enterprise is now selling award winning soaps within South Africa to many small wholesale and retail outlets. They have just begun distributing to the UK through The Visionary Soap Company and the dedicated efforts of their director, Monica Norley. They are also ready to expand into the international market so we would love to hear from other potential overseas distributors.

There is still plenty of work to do and if you would like to know more about this project check into their blog at www.townshiptrades.com and do take a few moments to watch the video via link above.