Zvazvinhu-Its now something.

Waypoint investments
Detergents at your door step.
Established in 2013 Waypoint investments is a detergent making project which was started by Miss Lucia Muchevere who lives at number 157 Chitungo in Sakubva with her ailing mother, and a young brother, Ernest. The mother’s failing health is now propounded by speech challenges and yet cannot afford to access any speech rehabilitation therapy. Lucia makes a living thorough making detergents with the help of her young brother who is now out of school. To complement the revenues that Lucia is bringing in, Earnest does satellite dish installations and offers typing and printing services something which he did not receive formal training for but taught himself out of necessity. The duo works from home and they sell their detergent right at their front gate making detergents accessible for local residents. Before this they had been working just close to the Sakubva market place at a place opposite Jopa in a workshop where they were required to pay USD250 as rentals per month. They survived for only two months and could not manage to continue because the rentals were too high for them as compared to the revenue they were making per month. They also found themselves unable to pay rentals to the Mutare city council of US27 dollars, electricity bill of 60 monthly charges which made them to rent out three rooms of their house to tenants. All this is to try and augment their household income in order to alleviate extreme poverty.
The project
The duo currently makes a multi- purpose cleaner, instead of a specified cleaner. This was to try and increase their market share and impose a competitive advantage over their competitors. The raw materials of 1kg sless, 1kg sulphonic acid, caustic soda, colouring-(green), and perfume (lemon) costs USD8-00 as a set. This mixture is prepared in a 20litre container. The mixture is then bottled into 500ml and 2L containers. The cost of each 500ml product is USD0.50 and each 2l product costs USD2.50 on cash basis and USD3.00 on credit terms. Per month the duo is able to sell six 20litre containers and each generating usd30 they are able to make at least usd120 per month. This money usually goes to medical expenses for their mother, food and water and electricity bills living them with very little cash to inject back into their project. This makes them improvise most of the time and they use discarded water or juice bottles to package their detergent in. While this is good for environmental purposes as it leads to a clean environment, they feel that they should brand their product for better markets. Currently they buy 35 discarded water bottles at 1 dollar from community members who move around Sakubva collecting them.
Challenges and Opportunities
While there is a call for health for all by 2020, this project helps in keeping the environment clean as well as having detergents to use for all purpose cleaning. Rebuild Sakubva now helps them by putting their story on internet and all social networks so that they gain visibility and probably get orders. Selling their products through the internet was also something they never thought about and Ernest really enjoys using the internet to see the comments about their product. Lucia still needs to learn more about the use of the computer but she also appreciates the fact that her project is now on another level. She feels that it is now professional and there is hope for them to get better and bigger markets which will in-turn bring in an increase in their household income. Now that they are on the internet Lucia says they need to legalise their business by getting registration from the local authorities.
Contacts
If you need multi-purpose detergents for home or industrial use you can contact Lucia on 0734639931 or 0776973112. For those in Mutare you can visit her at 153 Chitungo, Sakubva, Mutare.