Introducing a new stockist for the Midomo Bracelet: Ethique.

After seeing the recent photographs of the Midomo launch in Mwingi, more and more of you have been inquiring as to how you might personally sponsor a Midomo into a community. Fortunately, this surge of interest coincides with us teaming up with an independent, but similarly principled, stockist for the Midomo Bracelet… Ethique.

We met Pimmi, Ethique’s founder, at last year’s Ethical Just Got Fabulous event. Back then we were excitedly showcasing the newly launched Midomo Bracelet; designed by Alex Monroe, made from sterling silver, and the cost of each one funding the donation of one Midomo, which could then be tracked online. Pimmi was there to scout talent for the boutique addition to her online ethical concierge service. Whilst chatting, we quickly discovered that the core values underlying both our separate projects were startlingly similar – ‘ethical’ and ‘luxury’ should not be mutually exclusive. It was Pimmi’s aim to help consumers discover what these terms mean to them, and gently introduce them to products that fulfil both criteria. A short while later, we’re pleased to report that the Ethique boutique has successfully launched and the Midomo Bracelet is one of their few, discerningly selected jewellery products on display.

So if you would like to help Red Button address the global water crisis, in a very stylish way, please check out this latest avenue of doing so. There’s plenty of other ethical eye-candy to browse over whilst you’re there too...

Successful launch in Mwingi!

Following on from my last blog post I am very pleased to report that we had a successful launch in Mwingi!

The Midomo units arrived in Mombasa complete apart from steel work and wheels, (though with unexpectedly *bright pink* tap attachments!) We began the local fabrication process in our warehouse in Nairobi moving work into the local community at Mwingi as soon as we'd gauged their capacity. In the end there was very little that James and I needed to co-ordinate centrally. The significant hours of design work we'd devoted to engineering a product suitable for local manufacture / maintenance seemed to pay off; next steps will involve securing a secondary, African, factory site for the tricky process used to mould Midomo's robust plastic tanks... but more on that later.

For now, I don't want to say much more - pictures, 1,000 words, all that - so I will leave you with some of the stills we captured from the day the units arrived, and will shortly be uploading some of the video footage and interviews with members of the community at Kavoko and with Farm Africa, our NGO host.

In the mean time, we'd welcome your thoughts and feedback either via the comment function below or, if you're that way inclined, on our facebook group itself :)