Introducing the Women of Aklala Batik: Part 1

Akouvi Etiyaka

           Akouvi was born in 1990 and grew up in a slum near the village of Wahala.  She is one of eleven kids, 8 from her mother and 3 from another wife of her father.  Her father is a farmer but abandoned the family when she was young, and because her mother never went to school and was thus illiterate, she struggled to find a sustainable income.  Her mother took care of her children through community support and through the selling of charcoal and firewood. 

After 4 years of primary school Akouvi fell very sick with ear infections and was forced to leave school.  Like her mother she never got the chance to learn how to read or write, and because she couldn’t afford the right doctors or medications for treatment her illness has left her with severe hearing problems.  Having no economic opportunities because of her premature education termination she was forced to live and work with a family as a domestique. This was a very difficult time for her as she was mistreated due to her lack of hearing and she left at the age of 20.  Akouvi didn’t want to end up like her mother, she saw how her mother suffered throughout her life and she didn’t want her own life to only consist of housework and selling firewood and charcoal just to make ends meet.  She wanted to learn a trade so that she could support herself and her future family, one that she wasn’t ready for just yet. She moved to Kpalimé, knowing that her grandfather had a house where she could live in and knowing that Kpalimé is home to many artists and craft practitioners. Upon arrival Akouvi went to a local church to ask if one of the women in the congregation could help her find an apprenticeship, and a kind woman directed her to Chantal and Aklala.

Her grandfather helped to contribute to pay for the fee for her apprenticeship and provided her with a house to live in along with other family members, but she is still completely independent and must provide for herself. As an apprentice, she is not at the stage where she can make any income, so she continues to sell firewood and charcoal to pay for basic living expenditures beyond what she is given at Aklala. Akouvi is very appreciative of the opportunity to learn a trade and be able to support herself, the way she sees Chantal and Liza currently doing.  Even though she is having difficulty in some of the processes of production because of her illiteracy, such as following measurements for dye compositions and following instructions for different bag requirements, she is so grateful for how welcoming Chantal has been.  After Akouvi finishes her apprenticeship she one day hopes to open her own batik workshop, so that she will have a stable and structured income, something her mother could only dream of.

Beatrice Kpodjagor

Beatrice is the oldest daughter of Chantal, born in 1992 and has been learning to sew from her mother since the age of 9.  Her father abandoned them when she was just a baby, so she has seen how hard her mother has had to work to establish herself as a successful entrepreneur. Through Chantal’s business endeavors, she has been able to pay for Beatrice’s private schooling including private tutors, and she is now only 1 year away from graduating high school before she will proceed onto medical school.  Beatrice’s grandfather is an herbalist who practices traditional medicine and Beatrice has always taken great interest in his work and she wants to help him by combining the traditional healing methods with more modern practices and studies. 

During vacation and after school during the year Beatrice works for Aklala to contribute as a sign of her gratitude that her mother has put her through school and allowed her to follow her dreams of becoming a doctor.  There aren’t many young girls in Kpalimé who can afford to pursue careers in the medicinal field and she feels very lucky that she is able to do so.  She sees the ways in which her mother wants to help the community by giving employment to orphans and disadvantaged youth and that has inspired her to also give back, but in her own way and with her own set of interests.  She wants to be able to establish herself in the field of medicine so that she can offer free health care services to some of the region’s most needy.  

  

Liza Ahoussou

Liza was born in 1975 and grew up in the villages of Badou and Notse, where she was 1 of 8 children, only one of which is from her biological mother. Soon after completing secondary school her parents passed away, and Liza decided that in order to support herself she would learn a trade instead of continuing on with additional schooling.  After a batik apprenticeship, Liza took out a loan from a local Christian Microfinance Institution in order to buy raw materials and supplies for batik that she would sell in Burkina Faso.  Her plan was to sell all of the pagne she made in Burkina Faso and use some of the revenue to pay back her loan once she returned.  However, her pagne didn’t sell as she expected it would, as not many can afford to buy handmade and original batik, and she had to lower the price in order to sell enough to pay back her loan.  This meant that she wasn’t getting as much profit for the sale of her product as she had hoped, and all revenue, rather than just a portion, was going towards repayment. When she couldn’t meet the full payment, she became indebted to the institution and was forced to come back to Kpalimé to sell her pagne. She then had to pay the bank back at a monthly rate, now with high interest rates.  After paying back her loan in full, with little money left over for herself, she had trouble finding a position as a batiker, as not many businesses could afford to hire her and adequately compensate her for her work.  She found a piecework position in Ghana, but the matron only gave her enough money to reimburse her for transportation costs, not paying for the work she was actually completing.

After being hired by Aklala and working for enough time to start earning a profit, she was finally able to pay back all of the debts she had been accumulating to friends, family and other people in the community. Without parents who could provide for her, Liza had had to borrow a lot of money to support herself. She is very happy now because she has found a stable and steady income, where she doesn’t have to worry about how she is going to survive from one day to the next.  What is more, she also feels like she has a system of support at Aklala because Chantal takes care of her by providing her with food, medical expenses and other essential living expenditures, and will give her payment advances if she needs it in extenuating circumstances.
                Liza's own experiences as an orphan and having to grow up and independently support herself, has committed her to serving fellow orphans and disadvantaged youth through Aklala’s proposed free apprenticeship program.  She wants to help provide for those who otherwise wouldn’t have any economic opportunities by teaching them a trade and allowing them to provide for their own well-being, rather than constantly relying and being dependent on the support of others. She wants to use herself as an example to demonstrate the power of financial success and independence to liberate the poor from debilitating poverty.

 

Ups and Downs of Monitoring and Evaluation

        Today I conducted the first part of the Nest Monitoring and Evaluation surveys and gathering testimonials for 4 of the women at Aklala. Due to the recent nature of Aklala’s business development, there has been a lot of employee turnover as Chantal has conceived her path to organizational maturation.  Furthermore, Chantal is the only actual Nest loan recipient, meaning that she was the only source through which Nest’s physical lending could be evaluated. However, interviewing her other three employees was still beneficial in terms of seeing the greater impact of Nest programs including market access and business training.  The problem is that out of the three employees I interviewed, Liza and Akouvi are fairly recent additions, while Beatrice, is Chantal’s daughter and thus only helps during the summer when she is not at school studying to be a doctor.  While there are many women who are impacted by Aklala and Nest’s programs, most of them are done so on a piece-work basis and are called in when Chantal has big orders to fill, as she currently does not have the production space nor a steady flow of orders to sustain multiple full-time employees.  Beatrice and Akouvi don’t have enough experience with Nest to fully understand all of our programs and the ways in which they are affecting Aklala, as Akouvi is still in the basic skill training portion of her apprenticeship and Beatrice just does basic seamstressing just to aid her mother. To further complicate matters, Elam, another apprentice left Aklala indefinitely last week to go back to her village until the health of a sick relative is restored. It’s difficult to accept that women’s lives here are tied to so many different obligations, as even though she has a commitment to Chantal and to Aklala, her social responsibilities trumped her employment.  This is a cultural mentality that is going to take a long time to overcome, or at least find more of a balance. Etoname, Chantal’s final apprentice is currently working with two different matrons, Aklala and Madame Augustine’s, so she will be interviewed Saturday when she is next at Aklala.

Another difficult aspect of the process for me was our assigned roles of interviewer and interviewee, or in more accurate terms of service provider and service receiver; as imbued within these roles are inherent power differentials.  I understand that it can be difficult to remain objective, remove bias, and try to accurately evaluate everything the women say, as well as foster an environment where they feel open and safe to share all of their thoughts and feedback, whether it be positive or negative. Obviously we want our programs to reflect successes, but who is truly benefitted in the long run by false and euphemistic outcomes? It's understandable why a recipient would give misleading and evasive answers because they fear losing funding if they told the truth about the difficulties of the work. So I tried my best to convey to the women that their responses wouldn’t affect their future prospects with Nest, rather it was being used as a measurement of how we could improve our services to them by seeing what works and what doesn't.

This monitoring and evaluation process is so important in development work.  Too often traditional aid devastates when guided by good intentions alone and not based on vetted metrics of success or indicators—Nest uses the Grameen Progress out of Poverty Index as a basis for the survey.  As such it is important to measure both qualitative and quantitative impact, its not just about pleasing stakeholders, its about making sure the program is truly aiding in the poor’s development and independence by giving them the necessary tools so that they can fulfill their own potential—and by holding them accountable so that they become active participants, rather than just dependent service recipients. 

BUT—despite all of the difficulties in the process, despite conducting the surveys in 3 languages, despite feeling powerless when the interview was conducted in Ewe and I was totally reliant on the translator, despite all of the cultural sensitivities to bear in mind, I am so lucky I got to be able to be a part of this process.  Hearing these women’s life stories completely reaffirmed my choice to leave my comfortable and privileged life to come to West Africa, and to not slave away at some high return summer internship in law or finance like the majority of my peers. While I understand the worth and necessity of these professional fields and I do want to eventually get into business and learn pragmatic industry skills, I’m at a point in my life where I can afford to spend a summer in Africa, something I can’t guarantee in the future when I’ll be bound up in web of attachments:  job, bills, rent, etc. Today, their testimonials have given me such a renewed sense of purpose, I feel so much more connected to them, so much more focused on what I can do to help. Seeing how much adversity they have overcome and how their lives are finally being put on track as a result of working with Aklala and Nest is so rewarding.  I know there’s so much work to do to really get Aklala where it needs to be, but sometimes you have to celebrate the little victories; be happy that things are going in the right direction even if you aren’t at the end destination yet.

Sorry I know this post is such a tease but I will post their stories tomorrow after I finish gathering up the last of the testimonials and pictures. I figure the women deserve their own post that isn’t accompanied by my ramblings!

Motorcycle Diaries

Because Chantal has so much work to do in finishing up all of the Germans' and Emily’s orders before they leave on Monday, we decided to give Chantal the day off from us and went exploring Togo's plateau region on the back of a motorcycle.  My mother would die.  I hope she’s not reading this because here comes my next confession: I really really want one.  I absolutely love the feeling of being on the back of a motorcycle, the wind blowing my hair, driving on long stretches of roads surrounded by far-off mountains, palm trees, interspersed villages, and colorful waving pedestrians.  This sounds so cliché and so lame but on the back of a motorcycle racing through Togo I feel alive. Albeit fleeting, these glimpses of scenery and everyday existence provide incredible insight into Togolese life-- and I’m just happy to be able to experience it.

 

Ruben's plan was to take us to see another waterfall in the mountains of Kpime.  But first we had to stop in the village to meet his friend who would be our guide.  I didn’t really understand the details but we were early and he wasn’t ready, so we were to wait at his house until he came back.  No one was home except for one very pregnant woman making soup and 4 kids scrambling about.  Emily, Ruben and I sat in chairs against the wall feeling fairly awkward and intrusive, waiting who knew how long for this guide to come back.  I’ve already mentioned my inability to sit still, so after about I don’t know, a minute, I got up and approached the kids who were playing together in the courtyard.  As they hadn’t started learning French yet and my Ewe is a joke, we didn’t really have any method of communication between us.  So I did what any normal adult would do, I sprinted towards them and tagged one.  It wasn’t hard to catch on, and pretty soon I was playing tag with about 10 kids from the village.  Unsurprisingly they all conspired against me and I was the one who was perpetually “it”, which was fine because I think they got way more of a kick out of me chasing them than they did out of being chased by each other.  Soon Emily joined in as well and the two of us were sprinting through the village chasing cackling children, causing quite the commotion.  I noticed a couple of annoyed glances from some of their mothers because we were riling up their kids and getting in the way of their housework so I made the kids follow me back to the house and got out my camera.  

Togolese kids LOVE cameras.  They went nuts.  They started organizing a group photo shoot and ordered me around to take pictures of them in various poses. When I would show them their smiling faces on the display screen they would erupt with squeals of laughter and delight.  It was contagious.  But alas dad (our guide) came home, party was over, and all our new friends saw us off as we made our way to the waterfall, screaming our names and waving until we were out of sight.  
 

The “waterfall” was carved into the faraway mountain and it was about an hour walk to get to.  The walk and accompanying scenery were breathtaking we were on a tiny, winding dirt path with Togo’s signature greenery towering above and beyond us.  I have yet to get over how beautiful it is here. The waterfall was so peaceful, so cool, and even though the water flow was minimal because the electric company had blocked it to use for electricity purposes, it was still such a biophiliac experience.  

 I wish Togo could realize its potential for tourism. I think that westerners have the tendency to perceive the African continent in a series of lacks and failures, whereby travel here is limited to purposes of service and/or development.  I think most people in the west tend to see Africa in the obdurate and narrow terms of what we can offer them, rather than recognizing all that they can offer us.  I could be wrong and intensely naive, obviously I can’t speak for everyone in the western world but that was my general impression of my peers and community before coming here for myself.  

I have no intention, nor am I ready, to get into my own thoughts on development, that goes beyond the scope of this post, and I still need a lot more time to reflect, experience and gather my thoughts about this motherload of a topic.  But I think that the interplay between the artistic community and the tourism industry must be noted. Both the tourism sector and the craft sector enable developing economies to leverage their geography, culture and natural resources to support economic growth.  Specifically here in Kpalimé, the artistic community plays a large role in the commercial development of the town. That is why Nest’s work is so important here. By improving the efficiency and effectiveness of Chantal’s business while simultaneously expanding its impact and outreach to other disadvantaged youth in the community, Chantal can transform her batiking business into a full-fledged social and sustainable enterprise.  She can then directly contribute to the local economy by creating jobs, educating her apprentices with both financial and skill set training, and through generating interest in her traditional artistic craft by exporting to western markets, she can bring in more tourists.  While tourists currently have the opportunity to make their own batik with Aklala, in the future with a completed workshop Chantal would be able to offer organized, short-term classes to learn the crafts of the region, allowing for more cross-cultural experiences and collaboration, while also bringing in revenue for Aklala and for Kpalimé.  

I still have a lot more to say on the role that women artisans play in development but that can wait for later. Right now Elom is going to teach me how to drive his motorcycle.  Because I’m obsessed. I already know this isn’t going to end well, one time I flipped an ATV while in Mexico—who even knew that was possible. But as the great Harley Davidson once said, “Live to Ride. Ride to Live.”

 

Aklala's Apprenticeship Program

With Ashley gone back to the states for two weeks, it’s just Emily and me here trying to wrap up everything she needs to do before she leaves on the 18^th as well as manage communication between Nest and Chantal.  Chantal is ridiculously busy right now, she always gets inundated with orders this time of the year due to the high volume of tourists and expatriates who seize upon her unique batik work and products. In addition she has a couple more Nest orders lined up that will ideally be completed before the end of August, and with these orders she will be able to pay off the last of her loan installments which is such an accomplishment for her and for Nest!   

While Chantal is happy to have all of this demand and told me that busyness is good for business, I’ve noticed that she sometimes experiences stress with managing the influx of orders in the  time requested while still ensuring the high quality of her products.  This can largely be attributed to her lack of an adequate and equipped production workshop and the underutilized local talent of young women as potential apprentices. These past two weeks we have worked with Chantal to enumerate the details of her proposed apprenticeship program as well as developed a plan for bringing it to fruition.

            While craft apprenticeship programs are commonplace in Kpalimé, they are often expensive and exclusive to those who can afford them, which is unfortunately a small portion of the population. By denying access to training programs that could translate into future productive employment for Kpalimé’s youth, apprentice programs are not taking advantage of potential talent and community development and leaving many young girls with little economic prospects. In addition to these financial impediments, many girls face additional gender discrimination in the workplace. The prevailing cultural mentality in Togo is that women should be confined to the domestic sphere while men are the breadwinners.  Chantal wants to challenge both of these social injustices by offering free apprenticeships to local orphans and disadvantaged youth, especially young girls, and helping them learn a trade that has brought her and her family out of abject poverty.

            Chantal already has 5 women working for her, including newly hired apprentices.  Ideally she wants to hire about 5 more apprentices at the time as soon as possible to begin their training even if the workshop construction is not complete.  The official apprenticeship contract of Togo lasts for a duration of 3 years, but if the apprentice has demonstrated exemplary skill mastery, capability, and a strong work ethic than the program can be terminated in 2 years, culminating with a countrywide examination granting their diploma, so that the apprentice can start to earn an income. Chantal has the intention to hire her apprentices after their completion of the apprenticeship program.  She currently has a lot of demand for her program, but doesn’t have the capacity to take on more workers so she has turned away many prospective apprentices due to a lack of the construction of the workshop.  When she is equipped to hire she will distribute a questionnaire to prospective apprentices asking questions about the conditions of their lives, their goals and intentions for enrolling the program, what they want to learn, and what their plans are for after completion of the program.  She will select those that are in the most need and that show the most dedication and promise both in the questionnaire and in a follow up interview. She intends to start a model whereby she takes on five apprentices each year so that way she is not starting from scratch after each group graduation.

            After the apprentices have been selected they will undergo a two-month training program that will cover comprehensive but basic skill training. Once it has been determined that they are ready to progress, the next couple of months of training will focus on business education with Nest’s curriculum as well as the more intricate and complex sewing and construction techniques. If after two months an apprentice doesn’t show promise in terms of motivation, willingness to learn, work ethic, and basic comprehension, then they will not continue on with the program and a new apprentice will be found in their place.

            With existing apprenticeship programs in Kpalimé, it is the apprentice who pays an initial program fee for their education and skill training that they will receive, and then they are not paid for their work that they complete while an apprentice.  Chantal, by granting free apprenticeships, will not additionally remunerate her apprentices during their time of apprenticeship, but will provide free lodging, one meal a day, and will cover all medical expenses and basic living necessities that their families can’t provide. In this way she is allowing them to work off the costs incurred in giving them free apprenticeships and then once the program has been completed she will hire them as paid employees. 

            As for start up capital for the apprenticeship program, Chantal’s minimum requirements are a completion of her workshop to provide space, equipment, and all other necessary production requirements.  Once the workshop is completed, she also would like to purchase 5 more sewing machines at 38,000 cfa which is about $85, so that every apprentice/employee has access to one in the workplace.  Chantal thinks that it would be beneficial if the apprentices could get some sort of loan in order to purchase their own sewing machine to keep at their houses for additional practice.  This loan would be distributed throughout the duration of their apprenticeship, after they have demonstrated promise and commitment in the program and are reputable to pay back their loan. After the apprenticeship is completed they would spend a set period of time paying it back with Aklala in the form of product and orders.

            Chantal believes that  once the workshop and storefront are completed, she will be equipped to handle the level of production needed to sustain this program and allow for future growth.   However in order to be at this level, Chantal also needs more markets in which to sell her goods.  The expectation is that once her production capacity can be drastically increased and production time decreased, large orders can be taken on with much more facility.  Chantal has had great success with ethical sourcing partnerships with Nest and wishes to continue engaging in them as well as seeking out more local alternatives to sustain her in between orders.

 I am so inspired by Chantal, not only with the way she has been able to create and sustain her own business but also how she wants to use her successes to provide opportunities for young women in her community. Artisans helping artisans and women helping women.

Breakdown of Batik

West African Batik came to the region by the way of Dutch traders through ancient trans-Saharan routes and the region has since adopted the technique as its own. Wax printing was incorporated into indigenous groups traditional textiles, and the patterns came to be forms of social expression conveying political and religious beliefs, marital status, and even moods. 

Working from her home with the help of five other women, Chantal and Aklala Batik have established a successful enterprise based on the beauty and uniqueness of her handmade batik.  Chantal’s incorporation of modern trends and styles while still preserving traditional waxing and dying techniques gives her products a distinctive aesthetic appealing to both locals and tourists alike. 

 

 

The batik process begins with a large piece of 100% white cotton sourced from Ghana, as the quality of the fabric found there is superior to that of Togo. Some patterns and designs require the cloth to be dyed a base color before it can be printed on. 

 

The next step is for the cloth to be coated with a layer of wax in various patterns by using a wooden stamp called a tampon.  Chantal has a large variety of tampons that she herself designs.  In this step artisan creativity really comes into play, as different ways to use the same stamp or a combination of different stamps can create an assortment of intricate designs and motifs.  

The stamped cloth is then immersed into a reactive dye, allowing the cloth to absorb a color while leaving the waxed parts unchanged.  The fabric is then laid out to dry and allow the color to set in.  For more complex designs, other areas of the fabric may be waxed again and then plunged into a different dye to create multiple colors. 

 After the color has set it goes through an extremely hot wash to remove the wax and then hung out on the line to dry in the sun.  Once dry, it is ironed to fully rid of any leftover wax. 

The finished product is then cut and sewn to construct a range of her unique products from bags, apparel, stuffed animals, necklaces, journals, aprons, to laptop and cosmetic cases! Recycled batik scraps are also used for product accents and jewelry. I'm going to be making my own batik next week and I'm going to make Emily take pictures of me doing it so results to come!

Culture Talk- with a little bit of Shock

We returned from Lome and Agbodrafo late yesterday afternoon after a particularly long day of traveling. Tomorrow marks the start of my third week here in Kpalime, and after seeing more towns in the region, I think I've had enough time and exposure to reflect on all that I’ve experienced. 

One of the more striking things about Togolese culture is that I encounter affability, vitality and openness everywhere I go. Entering a shop or starting a conversation with someone that randomly approaches me in the streets without handshakes and an abundance of smiles seems both inconceivable and offensive. Perhaps this openness is all the more remarkable to me because I just spent 5 months in France with French society and culture.  It’s not that the French are rude, for I think that to be an unfair generalization, but I did face certain elements of xenophobia and insularity that are providing a stark contrast with my experiences here. That is not to say that I don’t stick out like a sore thumb, but I am never ignored here in Togo; I say hello 100 times a day. Children come running to the sides of the road as Emily and I pass, waving and singing the “Yobo” or “white person” song. Yet it’s these open interactions, this sense of barriers coming down that assuages the more daily hardships. 

For travelling, I am coming to learn, is anything but easy.  Road taxis are jam-packed with people and you are forced to either sit on the lap of a complete stranger, or remain upright and motionless with your shoulders and legs squished together for extended periods of time. You are subject to random and mysterious security checkpoints where young women shove loaves of bread into your face through the open crevices of the windows, and god forbid if the driver doesn’t have the right ticket or paperwork or whatever, a prolonged argument ensues and usually ends in a bribe of some sort.  You are jolted over potholes, and when it rains, like it frequently has during this rainy season, the roads become absolutely un-traversable, which doesn’t mean that drivers don’t still try and power through.

Furthermore, the utter physicality of living here just doesn’t abate.  Hot showers, cleanliness, and caring about my personal appearance are unattainable luxuries. Now I have absolutely no desire to look in a mirror-- in this case ignorance is bliss.  But because I’m not as wrapped up in myself means I can take in so much more of the world around me. For Kpalime, if nothing else, is a stimulation of the senses.  From the brilliance of the red earth, to the luscious green foliage, and brightly colored houses, the bold and vibrant prints on the clothing, and the lightning that illuminates the sky and operates like a strobe light; taking in my surroundings just got to a whole new level. Then there are the encircling smells of food cooking, of freshly rained on ground, of propane and Moto exhaust.  The cacophony of children’s laughter, the clacking of tonal Ewe, the rhythmic beatings of the drums, the street sweeping, the Moto’s honking, the pounding resonance of thunder, the same song repetitiously played on the radio; Togo has it’s own distinct soundtrack.  The humidity is palpable, the dust is everywhere, the sun beats down, but every so often the most refreshing wind will blow my hair off my face and tickle my skin, or it will suddenly downpour and soak me through entirely—I never now travel without a rain jacket after that first time.

 Yesterday I saw a monkey riding on the back of a motorcycle and I literally jumped up and down because I was so excited. I’m pretty sure Emily thinks of me as a toddler because I experience such joy and wonder at the smallest things, I trip on the roads a lot, I’m easily frightened by huge lizards and charging baby goats, and I don’t know how to sit still and relax for more than 5 minutes.  But I can’t help it, this experience is so new and amazing to me that I’m just trying to take it all in before it passes me by. 

Product Photography for the Lookbook and Design Development!

We’ve been shooting product photos to incorporate into a new lookbook/catalog for Chantal.  With this, when Marcella, a designer working with Nest, gets here at the end of July to lead a product development effort, Chantal’s current production ideas and capabilities will have been compiled and detailed so that they can be improved upon. Development will include but is not limited to the newly acquired liner that will make her bags much more durable and practical, incorporation of seasonal trends in terms of batik motifs and colors, experimenting with new batik stamps, using the better fabric from Ghana with which the dye is much more vibrant, and recycling batik scraps to make beads and jewelry. Ideally we will distribute the catalog to promote Aklala locally, reach Kpalime’s large tourist and expatriate market, and provide Nest visual collateral to show prospective ethical sourcing clients. Improved product design translates to more appeal and marketability for her products, which translates into more demand, and then more profits for Aklala. Increased profits provides the women higher wages more aligned with fair trade standards, and allows for construction of the workshop and apprenticeship program, both of which are integral for her intended business expansion.