Wade's Word: A Blog for Ruff&Cut

This blog will no longer be active

2011-07-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

I doubt anyone is still reading this blog as I have not posted anything since July 2009, but in case anyone does check back here and wants to know what happened, I have simply ceased to have time to write. With many new projects on my plate such as a new pop-up shop in NYC called Glittering Conscience, new collections for Ruff&Cut, new partnerships and many new ventures, it's hard to find time to blog, as much as I wished I did in fact have the time.

However, a new blog has been created and being managed by a staff member here at Ruff&Cut. Take a look. It features events, new designs, sales info and overall happenings here at R&C and also at Glittering Conscience.

Thanks for reading, and know that it has been a pleasure to keep you informed about conflict-free diamonds and Ruff&Cut's truly unique rough diamond jewelry. Stay green and eco-chic!

Best wishes,

Wade Watson

TOUGH TIMES AND BRILLIANT (no pun intended) PROSPECTS

2009-07-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

My mother always told me if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I have taken her advice and not posted a Blog in quite some time. So I do have some good news on Ruff&Cut, socially responsible luxury, and our Glittering Conscience collection. But first, here is reality:

As I sit at my desk in lower Manhattan, I constantly contemplate how this recession is affecting people I know. Several of my friends with professional jobs and steady careers up until now are currently unemployed. Diamond mining has virtually stopped in Sierra Leone (and throughout the world for that matter). Prices on rough diamonds are 75% where they were in October. I have not taken a trip to Africa since last December. By this time last year, I had spent a month in Sierra Leone and I would go two more times before 2008 was over. I can only imagine how bad living conditions have become in Sierra Leone with commodities prices at historical lows and unemployment at historical highs. I have been pondering how to collaborate with of the intellectual firepower currently sitting on the sidelines unemployed. What if they believed in R&C’s mission and could be put to work without draining too much capital?

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS: We have been quite busy putting together a lower price point collection that will be available soon. Fashion and jewelry bloggers continue to write nice things about us. The hits on the www.ruffandcut.com web site are increasing.

Ruff&Cut has been establishing joint ventures for marketing programs and supply of recycled metals colored gemstones and diamonds. One particular joint marketing program involves The Green Bride Guide www.thegreenbrideguide.com. GBG recently added the Ruff&Cut collection to its website. GBG has a philosophy of promoting environmental awareness and social change by offering ideas, facts, pictures and resources for planning a green wedding. Our goal is to help couples lessen their environmental footprint - by decreasing consumption, choosing renewable and sustainable products, composting, recycling and carbon offsetting. The GBG was founded by Kate Harrison, Yale grad and now Yale Graduate school student at the Entrepreneurial Institute. I met Kate at the Connecticut Green Scene Eco-Chic event where both out companies were
featured on Connecticut Public Television. Recently, I was featured on her weekly radio show/podcast for iTunes University. Her show is an interview series with the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, the focus of it being eco-companies/eco-standards. The goal is to build content for her website and to educate the broader community (aka iTunes subscribers) about important environmental and humanitarian issues.

Through joint ventures like this and the improved web site visits, Ruff&Cut has begun to sell rough diamond engagement rings. Below I would like to share two testimonials sent to us.

"I did a lot of searching for a company that could offer me a conflict-free, fair trade diamond and a lot of people told me I had to look to Canada. But I was adamant about supporting the industry in West Africa, an area that receives a lot of aide from our country, but not a lot of business. I was thrilled to work with R&C, where I knew I was getting a diamond that was not only ethically sourced, but also one whose purchase contributed in a small way to the development of a country that desperately needs not just our goodwill, but our business."

~Dave

Dave purchased a beautiful diamond mined in Sierra Leone by Pride Diamonds and polished in the United States. Tracy Matthews designed the ring.

Here is an image sent to us by another customer, Kim.

Kim made a visit to our home office after viewing several designs on our website. She told us she was having a tough time deciding and wanted to see the rings in person. We were more than happy to meet one of our customers face-to-face and watch her face light up when she finally settled on a Candor Ring featuring a 2.64 carat sparkling rough diamond. Kim told us not only was she thrilled to have such a gorgeous ring, but also that she received plenty of compliments on its unique style and ethical sourcing. She wears it proudly everyday!

We are so happy that rough diamond engagement rings are becoming popular. Moreover, an engagement ring epitomizes sustainability. By choosing a ring from Ruff&Cut, the couple will know that in a small way, their ring will indeed help make the lives of those in Sierra Leone a little better. I’m so glad I had some nice things to say, and I hope you enjoyed reading all about it!

Highest regards,

Wade Watson

Jewels for Africa

2009-04-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

Since my first trip to Sierra Leone, Africa, four years ago, I often call to mind two photographs (out of the nearly 20,000 I have taken) that symbolize being a child in SL versus being a child in the United States. One is of a girl holding a comb, and the other is of a boy playing with a bike wheel.

I have always used these images to convey to my kids (Christina, age 9, and Damon, age 7½) that it is by the luck of the draw that they were born to parents who live in NYC. I emphasize that life is not a franchise and that entitlements come with responsibilities. I also encourage them to set aside some of their own money for charity, to help those less fortunate than they are.

As we developed Ruff&Cut into a business and the collection of jewelry came together, my kids started to become interested in how jewelry is made. Several of the Ruff&Cut pieces are inspired by my trips to Africa.

About a year ago, we discovered a store in NYC called Beads of Paradise www.beadsofparadisenyc.com. My daughter took several beading classes there and has developed a keen eye for unique gemstones. She joined together with some friends and they started making their own jewelry.

Recently, they began selling their wares to friends and neighbors. During my most recent trip to Sierra Leone, I presented the headmaster of Aberdeen Primary School with $100 from the proceeds of our kids’ efforts. $100 is about three months’ salary for most Sierra Leonean workers, and four months’ salary for a schoolteacher. The headmaster used the money for a holiday party for the kids, to provide shoes for kids without them, and for lunches for several kids who go hungry because their parents can only afford one meal per day.

The charity our NYC kids have established is called Jewels for Africa, and this is how they describe themselves:

Jewels for Africa is a charity that helps the people of Sierra Leone and other African countries. Christina, Melina, Maude, and Damon are all the managers, designers, and jewelers. Damon and Christina’s dad (Wade Watson) goes to Sierra Leone about 6 times a year for business, and when he goes, he takes along the money we make from designing and making jewelry. We make the money by selling hand-made bead jewelry in sterling silver. Our neighbors and our friends are our customers.

Well, you might be wondering where Wade Watson takes the money. He takes the money either to the St. George Orphanage or Aberdeen Primary School. One dollar is the average daily wage for Sierra Leoneans. So one dollar from Jewels for Africa is a lot of money for Africans. For example, 25 cents will buy a bowl of rice or a mango in Sierra Leone.
We have made progress with Jewels for Africa. We all hope this continues to be a successful venture.

Two creations from Jewels for Africa:

Whenever you feel overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the need in Africa, I hope you’ll remember this example of what four kids can do, and find your own small but significant way to help our brothers and sisters in that troubled country. Look at the good $100 dollars can do.

Highest Regards,

Wade Watson

Blog Guest Star: Deidre Woollard of Sparkle Smart

2009-04-07T13:49:00.001-07:00

This week's post features two blogs written by fellow Blogger, Deidre Woollard-jewelry aficionado and philanthropist. On a recent google search, I came across her blogs about Ruff&Cut as well as her accounts on green jewelry, rare gems and the effects of mining on the earth and communities. After reading her posts and then making contact with Deidre, it became apparent that she shares the same values and views on utilizing business to make the world a better place. I am pleased to share these posts with you, as well as a link to her blog. Thanks Deidre!

Sparkle Smart Hero: Ruff & Cut

Ruff & Cut jewelry's website is pretty much what I would consider the standard for jewelry accountability. For each piece you can not only find the price easily and how much of the price is given to their nonprofit partners, but for each piece there is a complete list of sourcing. Such a simple thing, that the jewelry's "ingredients" be listed as matter-of-factly as a nutritional label. And yet it's something that is rarely seen. We are often asked to trust a website that says their products are green but Ruff & Cut gets specific , noting where the diamonds come from.

Ruff & Cut is dedicated to helping the people of Sierra Leone and redeeming Sierra Leone diamonds. Stones mined there once caused great harm to people, now these stones can do great good. For every piece sold the company donates 10% of their profits to their nonprofit partners working in Africa to improve the lives of those affected by mining and jewelry manufacturing. During their launch event, Oct 16th - Nov 16th, they are bumping that number up to 20%. The piece shown above, the Transparence necklace was designed by Deirdre Featherstone and sells for $18,700. It features a .72-carat round brilliant-cut diamond and eight rough diamonds with a total carat weight of 5.5. set in 18K gold.

Ruff & Cut Jewelry Line Launches

Posted Oct 17th 2008 11:02AM by Deidre Woollard
Filed under: Jewelry, Charity, Green

It may be, as the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Runway column put it, a "challenge in this economy to launch a high-end jewelry line" but it is one I suspect that Wade Watson of Ruff & Cut can handle. I had a chance to listen to Watson speak earlier this year at the Fair Trade Jewelry Conference and was impressed by how passionate he was about both the country and the people of Sierra Leone and the good diamonds can do there. For Watson it's a personal mission to help lift up this country which is one of the richest in natural resources but the poorest in so many other ways.

The Ruff & Cut name refers to the mix of both rough and cut diamonds used in the designs. Designers such as Me&Ro, Tracy Matthews and Todd Reed each have their own collection under the Ruff & Cut brand. The jewelry uses recycled gold and "conflict-free" diamonds coming from Sierra Leone and Canada. Many of the rough diamonds come from the Pride Diamond mine in Sierra Leone. Each piece comes with a certificate of origin. For every piece sold the company donates 10% of their profits to their nonprofit partners working in Africa to improve the lives of those affected by mining and jewelry manufacturing. During their launch event, Oct 16th - Nov 16th, they are bumping that number up to 20%.

The Nobel Ring shown above features a 1.35 carat rough diamond with a free-spinning center band studded with brilliant-cut diamonds weighing 0.27 carats total. It sells for $10,500.

Highest regards,
Wade Watson

Inspiration of the Ruff&Cut SKULLS Collection

2009-03-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

“Here they come, the spiritual troubadour journeymen of the soul—the see-no-evil hear-no-evil speak-no-evil skulls, smiling benign, uncluttered by color, by sex, or by anyone’s magic.

The smiling dead head tells us it’s good to be alive. And that maybe we could use what’s inside ours for some good on that glittering road to gorgeous.”

- Julian Borra, Ruff&Cut linguist & creative contributor

Most of the Ruff&Cut collection is designed by skilled and well-known jewelers such as Me&Ro, Tracy Matthews, Todd Reed, and others.

The Skull Collection is something else entirely—my inspiration, born of two important realizations that kept playing over and over in my mind. Not a particularly new idea, but I thought it would resonate with a certain breed of quite singular people out there.

The first realization: that skulls hold a universal truth in their sameness—a truth that should bind us all, kindred, regardless of background, riches, education, or fate. I, by pure luck of the draw, was born a white Anglo Saxon upper-middle-class American—the top 1% in the world in terms of quality of life and opportunities—while our brothers and sisters in the Third World struggle even for life itself, in some of the poorest and most unlivable places on Earth (the cruelest irony being that their tribulations play out against the astounding beauty of gorgeous white-sand North Atlantic beaches and with vast quantities of natural resources buried deep beneath their very feet). In Africa, all too often, short-lived, brutal lives conspire to reveal that their skulls are just the same as yours and mine, just as the blood that runs through their veins is as red as ours.

The second realization: skulls are the motif of the outsider, the gothic loner, the abrasive individualist, and the immutable iconoclast—a symbol worn by people who have either achieved a level of success that allows them to express themselves by wearing clothes and jewelry slightly out of the norm of what is deemed acceptable by society at large, or by people driven to want every part of them to scream “get me out of here—I’m not like everybody else.”

My concept is simple—that skulls:

1) see no color and represent a universal kinship
2) house the one organ we all have that might help us make the world a better and safer place

Stick those two notions together and they sit well with the glittering conscience concept of Ruff&Cut.

So I began looking at all types of skull jewelry and skull art. Most of the representations I found were sad, cynical, mean, and depressing.

I wanted a skull that smiled—knowing, smart, playful. So we designed one. And I wanted to be able to put some light in their eyes, so we did, with colored gemstones (black spinnel, green garnets, blue sapphires).

The Ruff&Cut skull collection comes in two types—the Enduring Skulls and the Subtle Skulls, in men’s and women’s sizes of bracelets, cufflinks, charms, earrings, and necklaces of various lengths.

Check out the collection online—maybe you have the courage to wear them. . .

Warmest personal regards,
Wade

2009-01-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

Faces on the Journey

I just returned from another trip to Sierra Leone—the country ranked dead last by the United Nations in several startling categories: least developed, life expectancy, and infant mortality. Sierra Leone is where Ruff&Cut diamonds are mined under best practices, third-party witnessed by Amnesty International, the SL Mining Union, and the World Bank (among other organizations that have visited our site). I have been involved in Sierra Leonean socially responsible diamond- and gold-mining for the past four years. My partners and I brought a different model of doing the business of mining diamonds, alongside a new kind of investment strategy that I call “community development capital.” Over the last four years, we have built schools, covered markets, roads, and bridges; we have also provided scholarships and micro-loans, and we support an orphanage. I am a social venture capitalist/entrepreneur. Social VCs invest in and build companies that desire to profit while making the world a better place.

As I prepared for this trip, I was expecting it to be the most difficult one so far. Door to door, it’s a 36-hour journey each way, and this time I’d be doing both legs practically back to back. Add to that the extreme nature of the Sierra Leonean climate, and you’ve got the makings of a very challenging expedition. So I packed some clothes, gathered my iPods and reading materials for the trip, and reminded myself that my life is not remotely difficult compared to the lives of the people I was going to visit.

As fall moves into winter, SaLeone (as many locals call the country) is on the cusp of turning from the monsoon season to the dry season. For the past five months, it has poured with rain there every day, and the average rainfall is the highest of any African nation at 195 inches per year. I arrived at the tail end of the monsoon season, and got to experience my first white-out caused by torrential downpours. The rain makes the roads particularly treacherous, and what is normally a four-hour drive from the capital Freetown to the mine site became an eight-hour endurance test. As you brace for every pothole, car-sized dips in the dirt roads, and broken pavement, your body is tossed around the inside of the four-wheel-drive like a buoy on a stormy sea. I literally wear a cushioned neck brace for stabilization.

The driving conditions were only one reason why this trip was so difficult. To make things even tougher, there was no rest time scheduled in and the already short trip was cut even shorter once I arrived. I flew overnight from NYC to London, took a shuttle to another terminal, waited four hours before boarding a flight to Sierra Leone, flew for another eight hours, waited two hours to retrieve luggage and get transport to a hotel, and then finally slept for a few hours. When I awoke, we embarked on the challenging nine-hour drive to the mining site. I attended meetings, ate dinner, had a few drinks, and slept for a few hours. The next day involved another treacherous one-hour drive on dirt roads in muddy conditions, followed by a second round of meetings, plus time spent photographing the mining site. It was then decided that I would travel back to Freetown the next morning and return to NYC immediately for an important meeting. I ate, drank, played my guitar for a couple of paramount chiefs and the governor of Kono, slept for a few hours, and then did the whole trip in reverse, all the way back to NYC.

My journey, eventful as it was, is not the real substance of this Blog, however; rather it belongs to the people and ideas I encountered on the way. Cultivating business in what the UN describes as the “least developed” country in the world has brought me into contact with an array of spectacular individuals, and they are my inspiration. I’d like to share a few of their stories with you.

First, there’s Dr. Paul Farmer (pictured lower right), a medical anthropologist who has transformed the treatment of infectious diseases in the poorest countries on Earth. A few weeks before my trip, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Farmer at the annual holiday fundraising event of Kageno, a NYC based nonprofit founded by Dr. Frank Andolino. Dr. Farmer consults and supports, Kageno which is now operating three multifaceted and innovative community development projects in some of Kenya and Rwanda’s most severely impoverished communities (www.kageno.org). I have read his books and the amazing book on his work by Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains. I brought that book with me on the trip and reread several dog-eared pages I found particularly inspirational. My playlist for the outward journey included Bruce Springsteen’s 9/11 CD The Rising. I am always so moved by these songs, especially Missing You, the song about the one who left for work the morning of September 11, 2001, and never returned.

When I arrived in Freetown, I met up with my friend Buzzy (pictured on left with teachers from School Twinning Program). Buzzy and I have been friends for four years. I love this man—he is the epitome of everything that’s great about the Sierra Leonean people. Buzzy has helped me immeasurably over the years as a facilitator to properly establish our business in-country. Buzzy is 40 years old, college educated, and he witnessed horrific atrocities during the war. Two of Buzzy’s sisters were able to become US citizens via the War Refugee Act. Buzzy continues to help me on many projects. I truly treasure our friendship.

On this trip I also met Larissa (pictured on lower right with women from the Women's Forum on Mining), a Canadian who competed with hundreds of applicants for the opportunity to volunteer in the Kono Region of Sierra Leone. A designing goldsmith at eighteen, her love affair with the art, science, and craft of jewelry started early. Several years into a promising career, however, she began to feel torn by the inherent conflicts and disparity between source and shopper in her chosen field, and her lifelong commitment to the global social and environmental justice movements. Larissa competed for and won the six-month volunteer placement offered by the Canadian International Development Agency to work with One Sky: Canadian Institute for Sustainable Living and the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone. Coordinating community-farming cooperatives, she is working to restore to productive use land that was ravaged by years of indiscriminate alluvial diamond-mining and civil war. The coops have recently become largely self-sustainable, and consequently the project is now moving toward more advocacy and rights-based training for all stakeholders, from police, paramount chiefs, and parliamentarians, to diamond miners, dealers, and diggers, as well as communities affected by the diamond-mining industry.

Then there’s Daniel Chen, our country manager and an incredible human being. Following a career in the Israeli military, he entered the field of mining logistics, and prior to Sierra Leone he managed a gold-mining operation in Nigeria. Daniel is responsible for all our school and infrastructure projects. Under his supervision, in approximately six weeks we can build a state-of-the-art school for about $30,000. Daniel was also the driving force behind our decision to support the St. George Orphanage. He said: ‘I simply could not ignore the abject poverty and orphaned kids. We had to do something.’

Ann Marie is a flight attendant with British Midland Airline (BMI), which offers flights from London to Freetown several times a week. BMI’s policy is for crewmembers to spend their stopovers on the Lungi Peninsula, where the airport is located (Freetown is a further helicopter, ferryboat, or hovercraft ride from the airport.) Lungi is very short on creature comforts—it’s not on the power grid and doesn’t have running water. Ann Marie has begun working with the Lungi Community Center. She has coordinated her UK neighbors and friends to donate lots of needed things, and on each trip from London she brings a huge box of items for the kids and community. During her stopovers, she spends time tutoring, teaching dance classes, and reading to the children of Lungi.

The last encounter took me all the way home to NYC and amazingly left me feeling more and more inspired instead of exhausted. This encounter was with Greg Mortensen, the guy who inspired the New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea. I did not meet him; I just read the book from cover to cover during my thirty-six-hour return journey. With each passing hour I gained more energy. With each passing page I was motivated to accelerate our work in Sierra Leone. Read this book—Greg Mortensen and his work are a true inspiration.

When I finally arrived home, I checked my email and this is what I found:

Mr. Watson

My name is Kelli. I am from Denver, Colorado, and am a sophomore at Pepperdine University. I am in the middle of switching majors and really trying to figure out what direction life will lead me. I feel I am being pulled in so many directions as far as majors go (and am somewhat conflicted on the subject) but really want to do something of substance, something to really make a difference in the lives of those struggling more than I can possibly imagine.

I recently read about your involvement with Target Resources and your new collection, Ruff&Cut, in Elle magazine. To be honest, I'm not sure what the purpose of this email is, but I read the article and was moved to contact you for one reason or another. I'd love to hear from you, whether in regard to professional or collegiate advice or anything (donation, volunteer, awareness, etc.) I can do to help your cause. Please let me know.

Again, please know that I greatly admire your compassion for the people of Sierra Leone and your determination to do whatever it takes to make life better for them.

Thanks,

Kelli

Happy New Year! May we all do a few little things in 2009 to make the world a better and safer place.

Highest Regards,
Wade

2009-01-20T13:39:00.000-08:00

Headlines and Perspectives

Congratulations President Obama! My hope is that we can expand our awareness of the conditions our brothers and sisters face around the world.

The very fact that you are reading this Blog means that, unlike many Americans, you have read about our company Ruff&Cut—a jewelry company that aims to make the world a better and safer place by contributing 10% of gross sales to charities in the most impoverished countries. The fact that you read about it means you “read.” You are probably more informed about current world events than 99% of the world’s population, and you may actually even care about all global citizens. Potentially, you may believe that it’s possible to alleviate poverty through activist consumerism. Yes, YOU can make a difference right here, right now, and it’s so simple. Whenever you buy something, whether it’s coffee, or chocolate, or jewelry, you have the power to do good by making an informed choice. That’s our mission at Ruff&Cut – to offer you an ethical, socially responsible, environmentally sound option when you purchase jewelry.

And what empowers us to make good decisions? One thing: information.

Like you, I’m keenly interested in what’s going on in the world around me, and am constantly hunting through the various news media for information. Here is what’s been bothering me lately: There’s something missing. We’re citizens of the world, right? But what’s leading the news in the US media? Here are a few examples of recent headlines:

US Taxpayers Bail Out Wall Street’s Bad Gamble.

Wall Street Legend Bernie Madoff Admits to $50 Billion Ponzi Scheme.

In Just Eight Years, White House Takes U.S. Taxpayers from a $400 Billion Surplus to a $1.2 Trillion Deficit.

It’s not that these stories aren’t important, just that there’s more going on in the world than America’s current financial woes. To be fair, there are international news stories to be found, and some of the terrible things that happen in the wider world do get coverage:

President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Says Iran is Ready to Rule the World, and that “A World without America and Israel is both possible and feasible.”

Presidential Candidate in Pakistan Murdered.

Marriot Hotel Bombed in Capital of Pakistan, killing dozens in the most violent act of terrorism ever in the capital city.

Venezuela and Russia Agree to Naval Training Operations in the Caribbean.

All well and good, but what’s missing? The headlines that trouble me most are not on the front page, but tucked away on pages 25, 26, 27. What do these stories have in common?

The President of South Africa States AIDS is Not a Virus—and he has led the resistance against implementing antiviral treatment, stating that AIDS is a defamatory plot against Africans and a con job by drug companies.

Oil Terrorism in Nigeria—Niger Delta Rebels Hit Another Pipeline. The Niger Delta, a labyrinth of rivers and creeks on Africa’s southern coast, is the poorest region of Nigeria despite earning billions of dollars of oil revenue every year for the last 30 years.

The story that has concerned me the most in recent weeks is the one that follows. Do you know where Guinea is? Guinea is Sierra Leone’s neighbor to the north. This news story has failed to impinge on more than a few of even the most internationally informed of us:

Guinea Junta Appoints Government
Military leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara seized power in Guinea after former President Lansana Conte’s death last month. Guinea’s military leaders have named a government made up of military officers and technocrats three weeks after they seized power.
No representatives from political parties have been appointed, but former banker Mahmoud Thiam has been put in charge of the mines sector.
The junta has promised to stand down and hold elections this year, according to a senior French official. They initially said they would hold elections in 2010.
Guinea has been suspended from both the African Union and the West African regional bloc Ecowas until it holds elections.

What’s so significant about this? More than a third of the world’s bauxite reserves are in Guinea, making it the second-largest producer internationally. It also has large reserves of gold, diamonds, iron, and nickel. Haven’t we seen over and over again in Africa what happens to innocent people when bad people control resources like diamonds and gold?

Here’s the deal: Africa rarely gets news headlines, yet one-sixth of the world’s population lives on the African continent. Africa is the last bastion of the world’s underdeveloped natural resources, yet it is home to some of the most impoverished, neglected, and politically unstable countries on the planet. One of my favorite photos is from NASA and is called The World at Night. What do you notice about Africa?

It’s time Africa was brought front and center. I’d like to see due attention given to our brothers and sisters in that wonderful continent. Here’s one example of something amazing that happened in Africa that got barely any international coverage. How about this for a leading story:

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the Must-See Movie of the Year
Abigail Disney is making an Academy Award run in the category of best documentary with her movie on Liberia’s war and the democratic election of Ellen Johnson-Shirleaf—the first woman ever elected to lead an African nation. This amazing movie chronicles how Christian and Muslim women came together to end the war by means of peaceful demonstration, including calling for a sex strike until their men joined in the effort to end the violence.

Two things strike me most acutely about the movie: first, these events took place during the last few years, yet few people in the West are even vaguely aware of events in West Africa. Second, the movie is being screened and translated in places like the Sudan where, after the screening, a similar movement coordinating women immediately began to replicate the Liberian women’s efforts in the hope of ending the war and violence in Darfur.

My hope with Ruff&Cut is that I can introduce YOU to the concept of activist consumerism and that together, through spreading the word about our company and the sales of our jewelry, we can in fact make the world a better and safer place. You have the power to change the world. Spread the word!

Highest Regards,

Wade

2008-12-16T14:27:00.000-08:00

Recession Hits Sierra Leone

As I type this, I am in transit back to the US from my fourth trip to Sierra Leone in 2008. I spent eight days there covering the country the way I usually do, spending some time in Freetown, the capital city, some time at the beach, some time with the schools and orphanage we support, and some time at our mining site.

I am a social venture capitalist entrepreneur. I invest in and build companies that desire to make a profit while making the world a better and safer place. Besides founding Ruff&Cut, I am a proud shareholder and non-management consultant with Target Resources, PLC (a London AIM-listed company with the symbol TGT.L), a socially responsible diamond- and gold-mining company doing business in Sierra Leone for the past four plus years. My area of responsibility is to provide Target Resources with on going corporate social responsibility (CSR) services, investor relations, and PR. Very often, my duties include taking lots of photographs of the schools and community development projects, ongoing and expanding operations, and the culture and beautiful landscapes of Sierra Leone.

My partners and I have brought a different model of diamond mining to Sierra Leone, involving a category of expense not seen before in that country and rarely seen in the mining sector. Each month, we expend tens of thousands of dollars on diesel fuel to run our bulldozers, excavators, camp equipment, etc. In addition to diesel fuel and labor costs, we have an expense called “community development capital.“ Over the last four years, we have built several schools, covered markets and road bridges, have funded scholarships and micro-loans, and we also support an orphanage.

I have made many trips to Sierra Leone over the past four years, and right now, the hope and energy I feel there is amazing. The food is amazing. The music: amazing. The people are always so quick to give you a beautiful smile and offer an insight into their lives. The laughing never stops and the hope for a developed country abounds. In Freetown, and throughout the provinces, Obama T-shirts, hats, and buttons are very popular attire. The Sierra Leonean people are as excited about President-Elect Obama as we are in the United States. The “hope“ that the Obama presidency has established in the US is alive in West Africa, even in Sierra Leone, one of the poorest places on Earth. I went to a nightclub where there is a very popular reggae song with the chorus: “Barack Obama, Barack Obama, oh yea oh yea.”

But the local people do not yet realize the dire effects the global recession is already having even on this small country.

Almost all of the commercial mining companies have shut down. People are starving, both for jobs and, in some areas, literally for food. Everything is for sale. For instance, just last March and again in May, all the hotels in the mining area were packed to capacity. Now-as the mining season is moving into its peak period, making it the best weather season for success-all the hotels a virtually empty. (Sierra Leone has a rainy season with an average rainfall of 195 inches and mining is at maximum capacity during the dry season.)

In the mining sector, the largest sector in terms of GDP and GNP (and I suspect other sectors as well), no new investment capital is coming into Sierra Leone. With the exception of Target, most if not all of the commercial diamond-mining companies have shut down and left the country. Sierra Leone Diamond Company (AIM-listed)-gone. Petra Mining-gone. Shadow Mining-gone. Cariba Mining-gone. West African Diamond Mining-gone. Koidu Holdings, the largest and most valuable mining company in Sierra Leone, has stopped mining for two years while it reengineers its shafts. The hotels in the mining sector are all now empty.

The local paramount chiefs (elected officials) speak of vast unemployment. They are begging us to expand our operations as thousands of jobs have vanished as a result of the mass exodus of commercial mining companies. For the first time in all my visits to Sierra Leone, I have heard the word “starvation” coming from the paramount chiefs and diseases like typhoid and malaria are on the rise.

Yet my impressions of Sierra Leone continue to be positive, if not absolutely bullish. I believe recessionary times bring opportunities for those who are most prepared for success. Every recession in history produces new wealth for people and companies that can leverage their goodwill, cash, and capabilities to weather the tough times and look to the future beyond low commodity prices.

Lately, I have been the recipient of a lot of flak for being so foolish as to launch Ruff&Cut–our luxury brand of socially responsible jewelry–in these tough economic times (Click here to read "New Jewelry Line’s Strategy: Tugging at Heartstrings" and my response to article ). In response, all I can say is that it took us 22 months to create a brand, inspire designers to work with R&C (and with rough diamonds) creating beautiful and unique pieces, to put together a top-notch team of colleagues, to be able to replicate the designs to fill orders, to develop a fantastic website, and to retain the best publicity firm in the US. And to be open for business in the fall of 2008 in time for the holiday season (Click here to read "Ruff & Cut Jewelry Line Launches").

Ruff&Cut has been in the market now for two months now. Surprise, surprise, we are selling very little jewelry. But, we continue to keep our costs as low as possible and we plan on being around for a long time. When you buy from Ruff&Cut, you know that a percentage of your dollars are going to make the world a better and safer place.

Highest Regards,

Wade

2008-11-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Test Your Knowledge: How much does a year of tuition cost?

1. $75,000
2. $65,000
3. $35,000
4. $275

Answer: 4—Fourah Bay College (founded in 1827 as the first Western-style university in West Africa) is the oldest university college in West Africa. It is located atop Mount Aureol in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

This is Hannah. She wrote to me asking for help to pay for

school and I am glad to say I was able to do just that.

The goal of Ruff&Cut is to connect the consumer to the culture of our global citizens in Africa. For nearly a month, I spent time in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone working to establish a business. Everyday I started my day in the business center at the hotel where I was staying. Hannah was the manager of the business center. She is quite computer literate, very helpful and extremely nice.

A letter from Hannah:

February 8, 2006

Dear Sir,

Good morning. It is a pleasure to write you, Sir. I am a university student and the purpose of my writing, Sir, is to tell you I have been driven from college for fees. Sir, the past two weeks I have been trying to make things up but to no avail because of certain circumstances.

I am the first child to my father. I lost my mother when I was 8 years old. By then I was staying with my Aunty because my father is a farmer and he has no money to help educate me with. I went to school and stopped during the 5th level. I took my exams and later I went to an institution where I got a certificate in Business Studies. In 2002, I applied for a job at the Bintumaru Hotel and I was employed, and they paid me £80.00 per month and I accepted it because there was no other job.
If I acquire a diploma in accounting and finance I can get a better job than my present one and the salary will be a bit better.

Sir, I don’t have anybody to assist me except almighty God and you, as my salary scale is very low. Sir, this is my final year in college. Please Sir, help me, give me whatever little help you can, Sir.

Thank you very much for your assistance. May God almighty bless your children and your entire family.

Best Regards,

Hannah (business center)

After reading her letter, I gave Hannah the money to finish her education –$120 US dollars. Can you imagine that? Tuition at Fourah Bay University is approximately $250 per year. Sierra Leone has a medical school and tuition there is only slightly higher per year. What baffles me is that there is not an NGO focusing on raising money for qualified students in Africa.

Another letter from Hannah:

June 10, 2006

Dear Sir,

How are you and how is your family? I just wanted to know how you are doing over there. You know you were very kind to me, so it is not easy to lose communication with you, Sir. I will stop here for now. Say hello to Christina and the musician (she was referring to my son, Damon) and also to your wife.

Thank you very much for what you did for me by paying my school fees.

Best regard,

Hannah

P.S. Sir, these are my grades for the first semester:

1. English Language: B
2. Accounting: A
3. Numeracy and statistics: A
4. Economics: C
5. Business Management and Administration: B

Hannah graduated June 28, 2006 with a Bachelors degree in Accounting and Business Administration. Helping people like Hannah is what has been the fuel for the engine of Ruff&Cut. Behind every piece of jewelry purchased from Ruff&Cut, is someone getting a helping hand.

2008-11-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

Wade's Word Blog

Elle Magazine December Issue-My Travelogue

Last May, I traveled to Sierra Leone with a team of fashion elite that included Elle magazine fashion news editor Alexa Brazilian, Supermodel Selita Ebanks, and Photographer Phyllis Galembo (http://www.galembo.com/). They came to Sierra Leone to learn about this beautiful gem of a country and cover the launch of Ruff&Cut's brand of jewelry. Inspired as I am by each visit to Sierra Leone, I am starting this blog with the hopes you will visit our web site often to learn about our social venture work.

The crew was able to get a real feel for the country, over the course of the ten day trip. We visited the orphans and street children who have found a home and a future at St. George's Orphanage (http://www.adecentlife.org/).

The jump rope (one of many gifts the group brought) was a hit!

Selita poses with a few of the St. George boys

Happy boys at St. George’s

We celebrated with school children in a village where our NGO partner Shine one Sierra Leone (http://www.shineonsierraleone.org/) has built a wonderful school.

These young student performers (dancers in front and drummers behind) met our car on the road to Muddy Lotus. Together we paraded up to the school where we were treated to a variety of performances. Muddy Lotus was just a one room dilapidated school building with a leaky roof before Shine on Sierra Leone facilitated the building of two additional school buildings.

Selita and a few of the young students from Muddy Lotus Primary School.

Happy Students.

We traveled through the lush green countryside to the provinces and visited Kono the heart of the mining district.

This photo typifies the lush tropical flavor of the interior along the road from the capital Freetown to Kono

The road to Kono is dotted with roadside market places – the markets are full of a variety of mostly imported goods: you can find everything from jeans and plastic buckets to diesel fuel and the supplies any enterprising individual needs to start hand digging for diamonds.

Selita enjoys a rest during our day of travel from Kono back to Freetown.

The mining region exemplifies the stark contrast and complexities of Sierra Leone; while 9 million carats of diamonds have been exported from the region, nowhere in the region is on the power grid.

Kim enjoys a quick game of pick-up soccer with a group of children in Kono – this photo shows typical roads and construction style in the region that has exported over 9 million carats in diamonds.

We, of course, took a day to enjoy the most exquisite white sand beaches. We had the stretches of white sand all to ourselves and enjoyed a delicious meal of fresh caught lobster, oysters, and a variety of local fish.

Just a small portion of the stretches of Atlantic coast-line we had all to ourselves.

While we had the beach to ourselves for most of the day – we did inspire the curiosity of some neighboring kids.

The sun setting over the Atlantic calling an end to our day at the beach

And, as no trip to Sierra Leone is complete with out a trip to Paddy’s, we enjoyed an evening of dancing and celebration at the renowned night club.

Alexa, Johnny, one of the founders of St. George’s Orphanage and Kim celebrate at Paddy’s

To give you a bit of background - I first came to Sierra Leone in 2005 with the idea of developing a socially responsible diamond mine, a mine that could be a driver for development reversing the 'resource curse'. Over the last four years, I have made several trips to Salone (as some affectionately call it), and the country has become my work, my obsession and my life's passion in the category of 'I can make a difference'.

Billboard depicting celebrating the strengths of sweet ‘Salone’

While rich in natural resources and tremendous ecological beauty, Sierra Leone is one of the countries classified by the UN as one of the least developed countries in the world (http://www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/ldc/ldc%20criteria.htm).

The Statistics are overwhelming: Sierra Leone has the lowest life expectancy (39 for Male and 42 for Female) and the highest infant mortality rate (18%) and is dead last of 177/177 countries on almost every statistical category.(CIA & United Nations Web-sites).

Yet with the abundance of natural resources and fertile soil, the country is poised for a positive future. Most importantly - the people are wonderful, generous, warm, friendly and hard working.

Ruff&Cut is a continuation of that vision an attempt to bring that passion for business driven social change to you. I hope to empower you to be able to make consumer choices that will have a positive impact on our world. Ruff&Cut is jewelry company setting out to be an answer to consumerism: by connecting you, the customer, to the villages where your stones come from. "Answer to consumerism" is our business model of transparency – where you can learn about the companies involved in mining your diamonds, cutting and faceting your stones, hand crafting your jewelry. In addition on our website, you can follow the impact of our reinvestments: 10% of the price of each piece of jewelry will go to our NGO partners involved in supporting development in the communities where your stones are sourced through development projects such as: building and running schools and medical centers, providing micro-loans, and giving love and supporting orphans and street children in Africa.

Keep coming back to our site. Tell your friends. Contact us. Let our jewelry tell your story. Join us and become part of a new way of doing business where commerce works for the poorest people in Africa. We believe with your purchase Ruff&Cut can be part of the solution. Join us to make the world a better place.

Warmest regards,

Wade Watson

Can Jewelry Save the World?

2008-10-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

About three years ago, I made my first trip to Sierra Leone. The idea was to succeed at creating a socially responsible diamond-mining company in a country known for a sketchy diamond industry, corruption, and civil war. I envisioned diamond and gold jewelry incorporating rough diamonds that would communicate a mine-to-market connection to consumers. Little did I know when I embarked on this project that a movie was in development depicting an awful portrayal of Sierra Leone and the diamond-mining industry there. Our company represents the antithesis of that movie and is a model for change in the diamond mining industry.

As I prepared for landing on that first trip, I took a few deep breaths. The Sierra Leonean airport is located at Lungi, a peninsula across the bay from Freetown, the capital city. There are three ways to cross the water to the capital: helicopter, hovercraft, and ferryboat. That first trip, we took the ferry. I was met at the airport by two Sierra Leoneans who were to drive me to our mining site. Aboard the ferry, I snapped several photos with my digital camera, asking permission each time and quickly showing the result to the person, always receiving a warm smile in return. My first impressions of the country were amazing: lush landscapes, the beautiful North Atlantic coast, very attractive, friendly people, all with their day’s goods in baskets that they would carry on their heads, singing, smiling, dancing, and preparing for their day’s work on the 45-minute ride. How many other white-skinned people do you think I saw that morning? Answer: zero. The people on the ferry were as curious about me as I was about them, and I found myself engaging in interesting discussions right off the plane.

Once we arrived in the capital, traffic seemed to be moving, albeit slowly (there are no traffic lights in the entire country—and the capital alone has 2.5 million residents). We arrived at the hotel in Freetown and I was impressed with the service, the comfort of the room, CNN International on the TV, and hamburgers on the room-service menu. I saw several white-skinned faces. I would say hello; the response nearly always revealed an accent different from mine. In all my trips to Sierra Leone over the past few years, I have met many white-skinned people. Very few are American. Of the Americans I have met, only one works at an NGO focused on poverty alleviation. The five or six other Americans I’ve met there are mostly filmmakers visiting Sierra Leone to make documentaries. There is not a lot of American ingenuity at work building businesses.

So here is the idea incubated over four years ago: Create a line of fine jewelry. Use certified recycled gold and silver. Give the customer lots of information about the mines and the working conditions of the miners, polishers, and manufacturers. Connect the emotion of the purchase to the village where the diamonds come from. Be transparent regarding the amount of money donated to charity from each piece (10%). Educate our consumers on how far their dollar goes in the Third World. Partner with groups in impoverished countries in Africa working to build local capacities. Build loyalty to the brand.

Can jewelry change the world? I believe your purchases will, and I promise to connect you to the villages and projects you are supporting. Some of the hottest designers in the world have joined forces with Ruff&Cut to create an amazing collection of jewelry. Use your consumerism to become an activist. In turn, I promise you, we will change the world for the better!

Warmest Regards,

Wade Watson