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If Pixar's Inside Out taught us anything- it's that at the very base of who we are there are core memories tinged with feelings like joy, sadness, fear, etc- their imprint on who we are showing their subtle flashes of influence like dapples of light.
There isn't a person I know who can't, with fierce precision, share with you about the day they got their license...and even more obviously worth remembering-their first car! Core memory unlocked, without a doubt! One of those few core memories we actually see coming for years. We dream, we plan (typically in full on self-deluded fashion) for exactly what we'll buy, where we'll go in it. We pull in our friends to all our dreaming and scheming. Even our toddler currently walks around double fisting Hot Wheels cars and our 7 year old would gladly play racing games for hours if we let him. It seems built into our DNA-this expectation.
In Togo, there is no core memory of a car that's coming for them. Joy rides, cruising and simple road trips are not the modus operandi such as in our teen years here in the States. Cars and bikes exist, of course-but with no production within the entire country, each vehicle is imported at astronomical cost. That cost of course only goes one place- into crippling debt for families already burdened with daily needs.
When we consider the need that Francis + Benedict sewists have for transportation, it's not the need for independence that we crave at 16 or the general rite of passage-but the need for safety, rather that navigating five miles rough terrain both to and from Lome. It's the need to arrive home, rather than hours spent walking until it's dark and no longer safe. It's the need to feel secure transporting and traveling with your children, rather than the added fear and weight of them going those same long unsafe miles with you.
Forgive the obvious play on words as we invite you to join us on the road to a new core memory for our sewists-the day they receive a motorbike! We have been able to provide 8 motorbikes, and just 5 more are needed. If you'd like to help make this dream and need happen, please click the link below!
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