Handmade shoes in Zimbabwe become a global success

In a tiny factory of hand-made boots and shoes in southwestern Zimbabwe, leather tailor Misheck Sibanda is in another turbulent phase in an attempt to cope with rising global demand.

Orders are growing and new workers are being recruited from Courteney's customer service business – this seems to defy all odds, as Zimbabwe is plagued by decades of economic misery.

Founded in 1993, the company recently increased its production to just 30 pairs a day, all meticulously fabricated by 14 employees in a one-room workshop in Bulawayo's second city.

The city – a former industrial hub – has been hard hit by the collapse of the country since 1980, resulting in mbad unemployment and a landscape of abandoned warehouses and ghostly, abandoned factories.

However, in an unmarked brick building, Sibanda uses her sturdy cutting machine to press shapes onto locally produced leather skins at the beginning of a process that results in boots selling for between $ 140 (14,000 Sh) and $ 500 (50,000 Sh) per pair. .

"We sell internationally – in the first world, even though we are a third-world country, that alone makes me smile," said Sibanda, deftly handling soft leather skins.

"People are tired of synthetic materials, they want natural products like ours."

Sibanda and his colleagues are at the origin of the company's history based on a skilled workforce, traditional methods and sewing machines dating back several decades for the production clbadic outdoor boots and shoes.

Awarded by a small group of aficionados, the Courteney boots have natural rubber soles – imported from Malaysia – and veneers of Zimbabwe game skins, such as buffalo, kudu, wildebeest and crocodile.

Using only skins approved by international CITES conservation regulations, he also makes ostrich, impala and even hippo boots.

"Wild leather, in freedom, does more to preserve the natural environment than livestock breeding," says the company.

The same 15 basic models have remained unchanged for years, avoiding the changing trends in fashion, with the exception of a few colorful boots for women.

Exporting mainly to the United States, Europe, Great Britain and neighboring South Africa, the boots are paid in valuable US dollars – the key to the survival of the Zimbabwean economy to the downside.

The country, hit by the hyperinflation of 10 years ago, is again affected by the currency crisis, government mismanagement and fuel shortages. Many companies have closed and investors have fled in the last 20 years, but Courteney Boot is quick to face orders.

Each shoe can take up to two weeks and three more people were hired last year to increase production.

"We have asked our long-time staff to pick new employees," said Director Helen Emerick, in the factory's smells of leather, hot rubber, glue and machine oil .

"They know exactly what skills are needed and how much work is needed, they want society to grow and we want a happy team."

Many employees come from families of shoe manufacturers, including fathers, brothers and sons, and young people learn the craft at home using the factory bins.

When violent protests against Zimbabwe's economic difficulties erupted last month, almost all businesses closed for a week. But the Courteney factory remained open and worked less time for staff to return home safely.

"We had a lot of orders to do!" Said Emerick.

"The biggest challenge now is to make regular power cuts, we have to use our generator set and make sure we have enough fuel, we do it in the old-fashioned way. There is no laser cutting here. "
The company owes its name to Frederick Courteney Selous, explorer and legendary hunter who died in 1917, and still belongs to Gale Rice, widow of its founder John Rice.

In the downtown core of Bulawayo's colonial era, Jay Giga, owner of a men's clothing store located on Robert Mugabe Way, says he looks forward to every new batch of supplies.

"A guy from South Africa arrived yesterday and bought nine pairs for himself and his friends," Giga said.

"I sell them as quickly as possible, we always ask them to earn more."

Back on the production line, Sibanda said he hoped that Zimbabwe's renewed difficulties would put society under severe strain in the next few years.

"It's so difficult here," he said. "But we will survive because we are unique".