Social Enterprise: Fonderie 47 Mission to Wipe Out Weapons

I love this story: it's about true social enterprise combined with out-of-the-box thinking, which together have created Fonderie 47. It's a business concept conceived by Peter Thum and John Zapolski which works with well-known designers to create exquisite, handcrafted, expensive jewellery and accessories from confiscated weapons. The products are beautiful and high-end, and sold at private events. The revenue generated from each sale is invested back into organisations to destroy a certain number of arms. The number of guns destroyed depends on the item sold. For example, a man's gold ring obliterates 75 weapons; an earring puts an end to 70 pieces of armaments and a set of cufflinks wipes out 100 assault rifles.

Fonderie 47 is a business model that inspires social enterprise and came out of Thum's previous start-up, Ethos Water, which today is owned by Starbucks. Ethos is another not-for-profit scheme that sells bottled water to support water sanitation and hygiene education programs in the developing world. It was while Thum was on a visit to one of these programs in Kenya in 2008 that he came up with the idea of Fonderie 47. He found the country steeped in violence following the contested presidential elections in December 2007.  It was the first time Thum had encountered people with illegal guns; young men between the ages of 12-25 had assault rifles. Thum realised that the presence of these weapons meant that it would be difficult for the country to progress or achieve anything in order to change.

So, partnering with the UK-based Mines Advisory Group, Fonderie 47 has overseen the destruction of 6,000 confiscated guns in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC is currently the only country where Fonderie 47 sources firearms to be bought for designers. Fonderie 47 does not procure guns on the open market; it only works with verified government sources. Thum's aim as an entrepreneur is to put himself out of business, and it's this clear exit strategy, along with Thum's proven model with Ethos, that has helped attract donors, and angel investors to back this social enterprise.

Thum sees Fonderie 47s as a fundamental part of the movement to eradicate illegal firearms from Africa. Unfortunately, though people are aware about guns in Africa, no one wants to do anything about it; Fonderie 47 wants to create interest in the issue about the way people think about this problem. A social enterprise transformation is required to break this cycle of violence in Africa and very cleverly Fonderie 47 is turning the power of the AK-47 against itself. As not only are these weapons wiped out, but by reworking them into beautiful jewellery it changes these weapons of death into immortal art.

Photo Credit: Vectorportal.com