Worthing student starts soap business to support school World Challenge trip

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A Worthing high school student has started her own soap business to support her World Challenge trip to Africa and raise money to help the orphans there.

Alba Braham, 14, is due to visit Eswatini in July 2021 with a group from years nine and ten at Davison High School.

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The charity expedition, working with Unicef, will include helping lay the foundations for buildings that will become neighbourhood care points for orphaned children.

Mum Jodie Braham said: “My daughter was tasked with raising £2,550 for the trip. She was feeling shy about asking people to donate money to her cause, so she wanted to make something to give them in exchange for their donations.”

Alba Braham with her soaps, available at Soap.eccopop.comAlba Braham with her soaps, available at Soap.eccopop.com
Alba Braham with her soaps, available at Soap.eccopop.com

Alba, who lives in Rustington, decided to make soap but as she started developing her recipes, lockdown began and her opportunities for sales in person were taken away.

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Jodie said: “Since lockdown hit, she was unable to take her soap door to door to raise money and there were no charity fairs or car boot sales. She needed a better plan.

“She spent her spare time in lockdown building a webpage to sell her soap. She had never done anything like this before but spent so much time researching crazy things like cookie policies and GDPR and put together a web page to offer her soap to the public.

“She has had to find environmentally-friendly packaging and has agreed to offer reduced price on her shipping to encourage sales. She has committed that profits will go towards the Eswatini community projects.

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Alba Braham with her soaps, available at Soap.eccopop.comAlba Braham with her soaps, available at Soap.eccopop.com
Alba Braham with her soaps, available at Soap.eccopop.com

“She has launched her website and received 180 visits on the first day. She has been busy packaging soap and delivering to her excited customers. She has also looked at ways to invest her profits into expanding her production capabilities. Like any business, she has had to fund her set up costs but she is hopeful that the public will get behind her soap and help her get to Eswatini.”

In the first week, she had 25 orders and sold 60 bars of soap, with rave reviews from customers.

Jodie said: “She has worked hard during the past few months but she has a long way to go.

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“She got some help from her father with the hosting of the webpage but she did the design and build of the website herself. She did all of the product development, manufacturing, marketing, website, payment processing, packaging and shipping herself.

“Her customers have said how professional her website is and how luxurious her soap is.”

Visit Soap.eccopop.com for more information and to place an order.

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The money will go towards helping the community in Eswatini.

Alba said: “We will work alongside local communities who are developing the infrastructure of their neighbourhood care points, where they support orphaned and vulnerable children.

“Here they receive free meals and an informal education to ease the financial pressures on extended families and foster carers. All of our profits will be going to support these communities.”

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