What’s Happening at Lulu Works Trust, LTD in 2011 January 2011, page 1

Finally Lululife-Sheabutter.com! The butter, the cooperative, the products, our retailers.

We hope to start a blog with regular updates on Southern Sudan, the lives of the women members,

testimonials of Lulu users and much more. Become a friend, fan or follower of Lulu Works Trust Facebook page

and Lulu Life Products on Twitter!

A new kind of Fair Trade Our aim is to increase Sudanese women’s direct sales to consumers, complemented with the efforts of socially

responsible business partners including retailers. We’ll be consolidating distribution, signing contracts, and focusing

on increased profits for our members. Time to get serious about profit making for the ladies.

Lulu Life

For more information on all of these topics and more, please request to be a friend or fan of Lulu Works Trust Facebook page. For personal

comments and inquiries please contact Lulu Works Trust at luluworkstrust@gmail.com. We welcome feedback on the website, advice on

marketing, questions on pricing policies, and any other ideas you have for the women of LWT.

2011 A Make-or-Break Year for Lulu Life Products

Since 2000, MEDIC, a small NGO working in Southern Sudan providing

water, health and sanitation services, has been actively fundraising to

subsidise the production of Lulu - Sudanese shea butter. It’s true. Lulu

Works Trust, LTD a women-owned cooperative is not yet a sustainable

business. Even the price at which LWT sells Lulu Life products is

subsidised and does not cover production costs. This has worked until

the grants ran out at the beginning of 2010. This is our wake-up call.

We’re looking for one last grant to build capacity over the next couple of

years. We’re making some major changes in the way we do things and

we’ll need your help to keep the Lulu flowing around the world...Read on.

Watch out L’Occitane! Time for a more modern container that can withstand

changing temperatures and won’t leak. A reusable recyclable container that reminds users every day to use Lulu Life Products – even when empty. And a label that

out-classes even the most sought after shea butters. Inside the pot, they don’t really compare with Lulu.

What’s Happening at Lulu Works Trust, LTD in 2011 January 2011, page 1

...Lulu Works Trust, LTD in 2011 January 2011, page 2

Visiting Southern Sudan before the Referendum

Kristina Belknap, long time manager-volunteer for LWT and founding member of

MEDIC, visited Eunice in Juba, Alice in Kaji Keji and Millie in Mundri in December

2010. Much to be learned from the ladies but sales going well to Oxfam (soap)

and locally in Juba; more nuts to buy in Mapel but the harvest was poor in Kaji

Keji. The ladies are doing an amazing job managing grants and loans from the

Sudanese Government. But LWT still dependent on outside help to keep the

‘presses oiled’. 2011 a make-or-break year for consolidating the cooperative,

making profits and sharing dividends with the ladies. Thanks to Kristina for her

endless energy, insight and commitment to LWT.

What makes Nilotica and LW special.... Gordon Wagner talks to USAID about shea butter in Sudan: Real fair trade: The Sudanese women who are the caretakers of the Nilotica tree not only sell their nuts, they sell their oil, they sell the body butter and soap that they make, and in 2011 they’ll receive a dividend from their ownership in the business. A new model: The only export from the newest country in the world – torn by conflict but amazingly resilient and proud. “We won’t sell our nuts” : these women refuse to become another Burkina Faso where nuts are purchased by the ton and shea butter is mass-produced by multi-national companies. Quality control and traceability: The nuts are ground by funduk, not by diesel grinder, therefore no contamination by petrol products. Each litre of shea butter can be traced back to the production site, date produced, chemical profile and the income distribution to the women who participated along the way.

Lulu Life

For more information on all of these topics and more, please request to be a friend or fan of Lulu Works Trust Facebook page. For personal

comments and inquiries please contact Lulu Works Trust at luluworkstrust@gmail.com. We welcome feedback on the website, advice on

marketing, questions on pricing policies, and any other ideas you have for the women of LWT.