Jennie Chancey will be using African women to make her money

[Elle]

Jennie's latest money-making endeavor is to use African women to make her new clothing line, in production now. I have exchanged a few e-mails with her under a dummy e-mail account about this. She'll be paying the women in this poor remote village their going rate, which is equivalent to a slave wage (if you live in a poverty-stricken village and your customer-base are poor people, how much will your going rate be if you ever expect to sell anything?), and shipping the dresses back to the US to sell at American retail prices for hand-made. She justifies this mark-up by the hand-made nature (I'm pretty sure my Chinese-sweat-shop jeans were hand-made because machines can't yet cut, pin, and sew, clothing items beginning to end without a human being hands-on, pinning, running the sewing machines, but it's not the kind of hand-made people tend to think of), and by the "immense overhead". You mean the shipping and mention on her website and a mention in her newsletter, and someone putting them in a box for shipping? Someone can box them to ship to buyers at the rate of 10 order an hour easily.

I've got a problem with this. I've been doing some work with an organization helping African women support themselves through sewing through an actual charity that uses volunteers and doesn't take a cut above the bare minimum necessary to administer the program. The American volunteers are truly unpaid except for their plane tickets and lodging with local families being compensated. Whatever the final product sells for to the consumer, the women themselves get. FoM fun raises to buy the supplies and fabrics and papers necessary to hep get the women started up and to send sewing teachers there to help the women learn to sew. The going rate otherwise is pennies for their labor, so FoM is truly helping these women be prosperous in their villages by passing the money to them (not even taking out for overhead startup costs because that's all by donation), teaching them to manage it and buy more supplies, and in turn helping bring the entire villages up. To know a wealthy white American woman is hailing herself as the answer to the problems of poor African women, especially in one of the same countries, by paying them their pennies rate while she'll be making big profits and talking about how she's being so helpful to them is just not sitting well with me. She's making it a selling-point that she's using poor Africans, and that just reeks of exploitation. In one of my messages I suggested splitting the profits with the women if she is going to use their plight to sell dresses, and her excuse is the overhead. Um...profit is what's left over after overhead. I think she knew what she was doing and trying to make excuses.

If you're going to pay slave wages just because that's all the workers can charge their fellow poor people, don't make it a selling point and paint yourself a saint for doing it.

[Burris]

Oh, wow! Any way to post that exchange here, along with e-mail headers showing dates and times.

If what you say is true, Chancey should be worse than merely ashamed of herself - and she owes it to her customers to let them know who is making their clothing and under what conditions.

[liltwinstar]

Where did you find this?

I just had a look at the S&S page and forum, and I couldn't find it.

[Elle]

Burris, I've got them on my computer, which is awaiting repair. I'm using my husband's computer right now. For the life of me, I can't remember the e-mail address o the dummy account I set up, but it's saved on my computer.

I even pretended to be the daughter of a couple of Africans who escaped to see if she would care, and nope, she sees no problem making money off these women and their going rates. With the FoM fundraising I've done (I'm not posting the full name so that a google search won't bring this post up and my little sleuthing reflect negatively upon the organization), I've learned how much the women there typically earn, and am appalled she's going going to make American retail pricing for handmade artisan goods as opposed the the lower prices for sweat-shop goods while paying sweat-shop prices for those handmade goods. Not even fair-trade. WTF, Jennie. At least pay fair-trade pricing instead of their pennies going rates.

She's supposed to be there on for missionary purposes, charitable endeavors, and she's glommed onto a plot to make herself a bunch of money on the labor of those she's supposed to be there to help.

liltwinsar, it was mentioned in one of her newsletters, and I think it was on her Facebook page.

[gustava]

What country?

[Elle]

Kenya.

If you get her newsletters, look for the ones from 5/25/11 (""A Spring Fling Sale and News from Kenya!) and 11/19/11 ("What's in the works at S&S Patterns?").

From the first:

"There are many small sewing guilds here in Kenya that are owned by widows and help women to produce and market beautiful items for sale at a good price that enables them to stay with their children and not succumb to a life on the streets. I hope to be a part of helping one such business, but I'll share more about that in the future. Suffice it to say there's a lot of excitement as we look into the possibilities!"

From the second:

"In my last newsletter, I mentioned our hope to support a small sewing guild here in Kenya that is owned by widows. Well, that plan has moved ahead nicely, and we've got some early results in from two new pattern designs I plan to introduce in the spring! Below is a sneak peek of two classic 1950s dresses the ladies produced with African fabrics:

I'm so excited about these new designs--and the possibility of selling both the patterns and the ready-to-wear garments that will help provide for these ladies and their children.Stay tuned as plans develop over the next few months."

So I e-mailed her at the end of December. She paint it as rosy in the btw of the newsletter, then says she'll be the one marketing for them (despite claiming they already do it themselves).

[ThisOlGirl]

I don't know why I am so shocked that she's doing this, considering who she's married to, but I am. People need to know what this disgusting, exploitative twunt is getting up to before they buy one. fucking. thing. from her.

[Elle]

She also has a picture on Facebook of her newest baby who hasn't been mentioned on the forum or website yet:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 316&type=3

[SamuraiKatz]

Ah...Money. The REAL reason the Chanceys relocated to Africa. I thought it was about saving souls and all that Christian stuff. :-/

[slh12280]

I noticed how she called it a ministry. How is this a ministry? Is she trying to convert people?

[Elle]

Yes. Part of the reason the Chanceys are there is to "save" people's souls by converting them. Good luck getting a bowl of food without having one of them say you need to say a prayer for your should and accept Jesus as your lord and savior and turn your back on your own heathen culture. That sounds like and jetful, but I mean it. I looked into the foundation they're there with, and conversion is a heavy part of it. There is a reason that help is rarely given in poverty-stricken areas where the majority are already Christian.

[Clementine]

If this is true, it's horrible.

Normally, people who are missionaries or volunteers in poor countried, help women found co-ops where mothers can work for a decent wage to support their families and they usually own a part of the business so any profit will be split between them or used for investments. Sometimes they build a daycare centre next to the factory so their children are safe and taken care of when the mothers are working.

I have never ever heard of a missionary who uses the poor women in the country they are in as sweatshop labourers. How can she live with herself?

[ChickeyMonkey]

I looked at her FB pictures, and wow! Those women are so beautiful! Not that I expected ugly women, of course. I love the different ways they style their hair and the bright colors and prints they have.

At the same time, are we going to see an influx of frumpers made with fabrics that have African patterns on them? Whatever will the Maxwells do?

I don't know how that woman can sleep at night. People like her make me hope there is a judgement for when you die (not that I'm perfect), because taking advantage of people who really need the money/work is just despicable.

[virginmojito]

I'm heavily involved in Fair Trade, so I HOPE these women's work is being paid fairly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nuff said!!!!

[Sola]

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest with the Chanceys. I'm sure we all remember the delightful photo of her husband.....

This is the right wing at its best - exploiting the vulnerable for profit. I really, really hope that this gets exposed somehow.

[Discobiscuit]

I really hate that she gets some support from some of the vintage/historical sewing blogs I frequent. If they knew what her beliefs were and what she is doing with the money she gets from her patterns, I wonder how many people would stop buying them.

I don't even want to buy the Regency gown pattern she licensed to Simplicity in case that gets her a dollar or two. :evil:

[Jessica]

I'm sure we all remember the delightful photo of her husband.....

Link? I don't know much about them, other than before I knew a lot about fundieism I would visit her site a lot and look for patterns. Never bought any but I considered making one of the Regency Era gowns for my wedding dress.

[Guest Anonymous]

http://www.freejinger.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=72

The post was copied and pasted from the old site, so looks a bit confusing at first. Photo about half way down.

[GenerationCedarchip]

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest with the Chanceys. I'm sure we all remember the delightful photo of her husband.....

This is the right wing at its best - exploiting the vulnerable for profit. I really, really hope that this gets exposed somehow.

Let's email Anderson Cooper!

[Effie]

I'm heavily involved in Fair Trade, so I HOPE these women's work is being paid fairly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nuff said!!!!

I love fair-trade too. I volunteered for them when I lived back home.

I have a question for Elle. You wrote "Not even fair-trade. WTF, Jennie. At least pay fair-trade pricing..." You mean fair-trade is a good alternative, but there are better ones? I'm interested in knowing more, if that's what you meant. If you want to, you could pm me. :)

[Elle]

Effie, what I mean us she's paying them the rate they would regularly charge in their community (then will sell them to warlthy first-nationers using African-widow-made as a selling point), but she should pay them the fair trade rate for the work, if not more, because it's just so wrong that she's doing "missionary" work that involves exploiting them. That's why I said "at least."

I don't know how that wicked woman sleeps at night.

[Effie]

Ah okay, I understand. :) I can't understand her though. What she is doing is cruel. There's no good in doing such a thing. Aren't we all tired of companies exploiting poor people? What is she trying to accomplish?