Page 429 - Volume 2_CHANGES_merged_with links

Community Economic Development

‘ubuntu’ - 'I Am Because We Are'

Waxed Paper Matches in Uganda

(I didn't realise when I visited this 'factory' that I would end up writing about it, so I am writing
this from memory. Some of my detail may be inaccurate)

In a district in the South West of Uganda, there's a business. Actually, it’s two very different
businesses. And one business provided the basis for the other.

The original business - Waxed paper matches

I had never come across these before I met the people who owned this business. The

owners were two Asian Indians whose families had been living in Uganda for several years.
I think they brought the idea for this business from India.

The business comprised producing and distributing boxes of matches. But the

matches were not of the type you and I are probably more familiar with. These were
matches made from 'paper'.

The process involves buying in reels of paper. Reels of paper with a width equivalent

to a 'match-stick length'
With a reel fixed on to spindle held by a metal frame, the paper is fed through a batch of

wax. The wax obviously provides a stiffness to the paper.
Once waxed and allowed to dry, the paper is cut to form individual matches using the

only piece of powered machinery. A heavy duty guillotine of the type you can see in any

small commercial printers in the UK.
Small bins of these waxed paper sticks are taken to another room and there,

depending on the day and time of day, you might expect to find perhaps 10-20 Africans.
Each takes a wooden block into which a number of shallow holes have been drilled.

The number of holes set to match the number of matches to go into a matchbox.

As blocks are filled with the requisite number of sticks, the blocks are dipped into a
'phosphorous' mix so that each stick has the strike-able head that it will need. Once the

phosphorus has been allowed to dry, the now fully formed matches are used to fill each of

the bought in matchboxes.
All of this took places in the most ramshackle mix of semi-derelict rooms of what was

previously a long-unused building. Definitely not purpose-built. Definitely not a building or a

production process that would impress any 'work study' consultant.