Lindsey Ritchie Carpets For Communities Interview

Lindsey Ritchie Carpets For Communities Interview

Carpets For Communities is a not-for-profit social enterprise that aims to break the cycle of poverty through supporting education and sustainable development solutions produces.

Interview with Lindsey Ritchie

Question: What is Carpets For Communities?

Lindsey Ritchie: CfC is a social enterprise focused on breaking the cycle of poverty that represses generations of families in Poi Pet. We work with women in Poi Pet, Cambodia, to make handicrafts, most notably carpets, which we then sell in Australia, and more recently America.


Question: What are you doing in hopes to break the cycle of poverty?

Lindsey Ritchie: By engaging mothers to earn a reliable income they are able to send their children to school. Each extra year of school increases a person's income by 10% in the long run, so we see that education is the key to break the inter-generational poverty. After making carpets for a year, we work with the whole family to set up their own micro-businesses so they can become fully financially independent of CfC. We do still keep in contact and regularly follow up with the families to ensure their businesses are going well.


Question: What is your role at Carpets For Communities?

Lindsey Ritchie: I'm the current CEO of Carpets for Communities.


Question: What inspired you to become involved with Carpets For Communities?

Lindsey Ritchie: I really loved that volunteers were the driving force behind the program. It is incredibly grass-roots, which is the complete opposite of my previous work experiences. I love that being in Cambodia you can see directly the impact you are having on the lives of those families involved in the project.


Question: You're currently in Cambodia, can you tell us about a typical day for you?

Lindsey Ritchie: There is no typical day in Cambodia! Truly, my days vary substantially, but most of my time spent trying to develop CfC into a sustainable organisation. This includes developing partnerships with other NGO's in Cambodia that complement our project, working out ways to expand CfC both in Australia and globally, developing ways to ensure the financial sustainability of CfC. Social enterprises normally take a while to become financially sustainable, and we are just reaching that point now, which means we are coming into an exciting phase of growth for us.


Question: How many people do you manage as a part of your team in Cambodia?

Lindsey Ritchie: The team is very multi-cultural workplace, with 4 expat staff from all corners of the world, and 4 Khmer staff, 100's of volunteers and interns.


Question: What challenges do you encounter as the CEO of Carpets For Communities?

Lindsey Ritchie: The biggest challenge is being based in Cambodia, we are in a phase where we are trying to grow CfC, but being based in Cambodia makes it difficult to really do that. We try and balance this by making 2 trips a year back to Australia. I am heading back for October and November to work with our volunteers, meet new retailers, and try and expand the CfC brand. But on the other hand, the best thing about my job is being based in Cambodia and seeing the impact you have.

Other challenges of course are dealing with the cross cultural differences, both between Australia and Cambodia, but also within the team, currently in the executive office we have 7 staff with 5 different nationalities.


Question: How do you overcome the cultural differences between Cambodia and Australia?

Lindsey Ritchie: We have a wonderful Country Manager, Kimsreang, she has been working with us for 2 years. She started as our social worker, so worked directly with the families managing any issues they had, and developing their businesses with them. Then after a year she was promoted to Country Manager, she now works our head office and she is always there advocating for the families. Any time there is an issue that we need resolving Kim and I sit down and work out how we can balance the situation so we get the best outcome for CfC and our families.


Question: How important is being an advocate for women and communities, for you?

Lindsey Ritchie: Hugely. Before coming to CfC I worked at UN Women Australia, and that really opened my eyes to the plight of women globally. Now at CfC, you can really see that by empowering women you can really change the world and the impact that supporting women has on the family and the whole community.


Question: How can other Australians help Carpets For Communities?

Lindsey Ritchie: Become a volunteer, we are always looking for new people to come on board and support us. Become a partner, being a social enterprise we try and keep costs to an absolute minimum, having partners for organisational costs such as storage, printing, transport, and retailer means that the money we save can be directly diverted back to the project.


Question: What advice do you have for other young Australians who want to become a CEO and work for a not-for-profit organisation?

Lindsey Ritchie: Gain as much experience as you can before you take in the challenge. I was incredibly young when I got this opportunity, and I love my job. However, it is a lot to handle living in a foreign country where you don't have your usual support networks.

For me I have been lucky enough to have had some wonderful and rewarding jobs in the NGO sector before making the move overseas. My advice is make every job you have count and work as hard as you can, no matter what the job. I've always believed it's not so much the actual job title that is important but it's how you undertake that job that really counts.


Interview by Brooke Hunter