Idea 239 of 500. Cluster 12: The gem chain, from Ratnapura to the certificate
Gem-cutting apprenticeships, paid, with the graduates employed by the studios above
The mechanism, from the book
The sapphire is mined here and cut here, and its value is certified in Basel and turned into money in Geneva. Every step of that chain can be built at home, and the first one is the piece of paper.
Every idea in cluster 12 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Ask 3 master cutters in Colombo or Ratnapura whether each would take one paid apprentice for 6 months if the wage was shared, and what the apprentice would need to learn. Then ask 2 jewellery studios or dealers whether they would employ a graduate. The proof is a master's yes and an employer's written promise of a job.
- Who pays first
- A dealer or studio short of skilled cutters that will pay part of an apprentice's wage to have a trained cutter at the end of it.
- What leaves today
- The cutting skill is ageing out with its masters, and without a new generation the island's one step up the value chain goes abroad too.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
The sapphires in the island's inventory - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
Basel, Geneva and the Swiss gem bridge
More from cluster 12
- 236A gem laboratory in Colombo to the standard of the Swiss ones, with a foreign partner if it must, so the origin report is issued where the stone was mined
- 237Jewellery design studios employing the young designers who now leave for Bangkok and Dubai
- 238A Ratnapura mine visit sold as a day, with a licensed dealer and a laboratory report on anything you buy
- 240A Ceylon sapphire brand for engagement rings, sold online to Sri Lankans abroad and beyond, with the stone's story traced from pit to finger
- 241Auction days in Colombo for the trade, with international buyers flown in, the way Geneva does it twice a year
- 242Moonstone from Meetiyagoda as a named origin, since nobody else has it
Idea 239 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.