My church is involved with a number of Central American communities in El Salvador and Nicaragua. While those countries are a lot more stable than they were in past decades, nonetheless a lot of poverty remains, the infrastructure outside of the main cities is a disaster, and wounded fighters from both the Army and the revolutionary forces live all over the country.

It so happens that one community that my church partners with, has a small sewing cooperative; the ALGES Sewing Cooperative in Comunidad Segundo Montes.

About a year ago I had an idea. I knew that the sewing co-op was in trouble. They were tight for contracts and were getting by sewing up underwear for the Jesuits. WHAT IF...I sez to myself....WHAT IF.....the coop would sew up a derivative of an X-Kilt?

I know, this sounds crazy, but I don't have to convince anyone on this board about the market for contemporary kilts. If an organic cotton/hemp blend were purchased in bulk, perhaps in three or four colors, I'd assume that the price per yard of the
material might come to $5.00 a yard, of 54 inch material. I bet it's actually a lot less. It takes two yards to make one of my kilts, so material cost is about $10. It takes me about 12 hours to cut one out and stitch it up, and I'm not production speed by any stretch of the imagination. I bet anything that someone who was a professional could make an X-kilt in 8 hours, and probably faster. They ARE more work than a pair of pants. If a Nicaraguan or El Salvadorean worker makes $2.00 an hour, which I understand would be a phenomenal wage in those countries, then that kilt would cost roughly $26.00 to produce.

Is, in fact $2.00 an hour a good wage in El Salvador or Nicaragua?

http://www.romeropineda.com/resource....php?itemid=29
That's an article about Minimum Wage in El Salvador in 2007, here's an excerpt, bold highlights added by me..
Textile and confection maquila workers will earn $5.24 USD for an ordinaryworkday; or $0.65 USD per hour, or $157.20 USD monthly.

So yes, $2.00 an hour is a VERY VERY good wage in El Salvador. It's three times the minimum wage. So we're not abusing anybody, here.

The "organic cotton/hemp" blend appeals to a particular market of enviro-conscious folks, which might be a good market for a contemporary kilt.

Let's pretend that there's a 50% tax on importing the kilts into the USA. This is a complete and total guess on my part. Now our kilt costs $39 to get into the country. Add another $5.00 to pay for shipping to a sales location and storage for the items. The kilt now costs $44 to produce and get to a central sales location.

If you turn around and sell it for $84, you just made a profit of $40 and you're still selling a quality garment for $50-$75 LESS than the competition for "off the rack" kilts. If half of that went to paying a staff person in a 30 hour a week job to handle the sales/warehousing/shipping that would still leave $20 a garment to go to peace and justice and environmental causes. It would not surprise me in the slightest if 1,000+ units would sell each year for the next few years, at least. Remember, Utilikilts sold nearly 20,000 units in 2007 (3 million dollars in sales, assuming average sale price was $150) and they cost a lot more than $100. I have no idea how many Boulder Kilts were sold by Sportkilt, but I bet it was more than 1,000.

If 1,000 units old, that would provide income for one 3/4-time person in a part of the country where the cost of living wasn't too high (not the San Francisco Bay Area!!!) and still bring in $20,000 towards one or more Peace / Justice /Environmental programs. I think it would be *great* to raise $20,000 for habitat preservation in Central and South America, where land and habitat is disappearing so fast it's terrifying, and where the existing rain forest is a huge carbon buffer for excess CO2 that's involved in climate change.

I have really slammed some very rough numbers here, but I wonder if this couldn't be done. I DON'T want to make profit out of it, myself, I just want to make a contribution towards making the world a better place and this seems like a unique way to do it.

AND

this project makes less expensive, 'stock" (not custom) kilts available at a lower price to folks who'd like to try them.


Thoughts? Kudos? Condemnations?