Episode 4 of the fairafric Impact Stories

A new beginning
The story of Francis and fairafric begins with his sister Mawuse, who left the Volta region to look for work. She ended up in an extremely hard and poorly paid job. A friend introduced her to our Managing Director Michael, who offered her a job as a nanny. On the very first night, she developed a high temperature and had to be hospitalised for acute malaria. As Michael had no contact with her family, he asked the friend for help, who put him in touch with her brother Francis. Francis, who lived 35 kilometres away, rushed to the hospital worried after Michael informed him of Mawuse's condition. Without a mobile phone, Francis was unable to inform his work and lost his job while caring for his sister. Michael never forgot this experience. When the foundation stone for our factory was laid in spring 2020 and night-time surveillance of the construction site was necessary, Francis' journey with fairafric began.

Abb. 1: Francis with Michael (Managing Director fairafric Ghana ltd.) in front of the our office "the view"  

 

Portrait of Francis
Francis Lotsu was born in September 1997 in eastern Ghana. He grew up with his two siblings with his grandparents.

After high school, Francis moved to Accra, where he found a job as a security guard.

A misunderstanding and hidden talents
During the initially powerless nights, only a simple construction container offered protection from the sun and rain, which made the conditions quite uncomfortable. Francis, who started out as a security guard, quickly proved to be reliable and soon took over the
training of other security guards that we hired. By the time the basic structure of our factory was in place and machine installation was underway, valuable tools were scattered everywhere. We asked Francis to keep a watchful eye on them during the day. In order not to be immediately recognisable as a security guard, he dressed like the construction workers. This led to the misunderstanding and the
quote from the German mechanic, who assumed that Francis was less hard-working because he was not actively involved in the construction. This was a misconception, as Francis is one of our most committed employees and also possesses numerous talents.
One of these talents is his artistry, which he was never able to fully realise due to a lack of support and financial resources. I became aware of his artistic talent when a German engineer, who had befriended Francis during the construction phase, contacted me to send brushes, paints and canvases for Francis, which he no longer needed. Francis was very happy about this gift. We then began to look for ways in which he could contribute his artistic skills to fairafric. In response to our enquiry, Francis suggested designing the exterior walls of our office building with motifs from the history of fairafric. The impressive result of this work is a testament to his great talent.

Abb. 2: Francis is showing the progress of his artwork "The history of Cocoa".


The motivation to fulfill your dream
In Ghana, financing art is an enormous challenge, as even basic materials such as paints, canvases and brushes are often prohibitively expensive and can exceed a person's income.
The purchase of artwork also remains out of reach for many.
Convinced of Francis' talent, we decided to support him by providing the necessary materials and allowing him to use our workshop. For Francis, this is the first opportunity to pursue his passion, allowing him to regularly spend time in the factory after work and on his days off to work on his artwork.

The first project

Francis' first work was a gift for the technical director of Weinrich, who planned our factory and regularly comes to Ghana to train our team. Because of his fondness for old Porsches, Francis
carved a handmade Porsche out of wood.















Current work

Francis is currently working on the outer
front of our security tower. A drawing
describing the history of cocoa will be created here.

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