The story of how we started to educate and empower young girls in textile recycling and fashion designing

Prior to starting @ecodesigns, we carried out some research about textile waste and the fashion industry in Bamenda - North West Region of Cameroon. We distributed 400 questionnaires to tailors and fashion designers in our community.
We wanted to find out the amount the amount of textile waste produced by the fashion industry in Bamenda, the total number of tailors and fashion designers as well as know whether the people were aware of the environmental impact of the textile and fashion industry.
Some of our research findings include;

1. The amount of textile waste generated in Bamenda is rapidly increasing
2. Many people do not know the environmental impact of textile waste
3. The tailoring industry in Bamenda is dying i.e. Professionalism is dying, prices are falling, business is dying and all these are due to the huge influx of low quality non-durable and cheap materials imported from abroad. Any man anywhere is sewing anything and really don't care about the quality of the product nor price.
4. There are more “General Tailors” than “Specialist or Specialized Tailors”
5. Women garments produce more textile waste than men garments
6. Women sew and have more garments than men
7. There are more than 800 Tailors in Bamenda
8. Each tailor generates an average of 2 – 5kg of textile waste every week and even more during festive periods. We realized from this research that the tailoring/fashion industry in Bamenda generates about 1600kg to 4000kg of textile waste every week.
9. The Bamenda main market and Commercial Avenue have the highest amount of tailors in the city hence is the heart of textile waste production in the city
10. More than 90% of the tailors/fashion designers burn or throw their textile waste in the landfill and many of them were unaware of the environmental impact of the textile waste and the textile industry as a whole.

These are just some of our findings

But how did we start @ecodesigns

In his search for a tailor with passion, @mr-greens met @fonirene who had participated in the textile research and demonstrated a lot of passion in the recycling of textile waste. After weeks of deliberation, both of them decided to pursue their dreams of women empowerment and environmental protection via the training of young girls in fashion designing and the recycling of textile waste.
At that time, @fonirene was sharing a small room with a hairdresser as her workshop but after sharing her passion with @mr-greens and both of them agreed to pursue a common dream, @fonirene moved to @thegreens office which became her new workshop.

@mr-greens and @fonirene

You can read about @fonirene’s story here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@fonirene/introducing-fon-irene-a-textile-recycler-and-fashion-designer

@mr-greens putting up posters in communities to sensitize the public about Waste Business Hub and @ecodesigns

@ecodesigns was started with just one sewing machine and it was the Butterfly Sewing machine @fonirene used in her workshop that she brought to @thegreens. With just one machine, we were confident that we will be able to achieve our dream of educating and engaging young girls in textile recycling and fashion designing.
So we put up our notices to recruit young girls in the training.
Then @thegreens bought a Singer sewing machine and for the hub to have two machines. Since it was summer holidays, we had first received students who wanted to get busy during the summer holidays. We had a team of 07 young girls who learned needlework and how to upcycle textile waste for three months.

@ecodesigns summer holiday trainees

After the summer holiday program, @thegreens with the support of @mr-greens and @thegreens Green Elders, Richard and Monica Jeffers from Phoenix, Arizona U.S.A was able to purchase the Emel Industrial Sewing Machine and another Butterfly Sewing Machine. These took up our machines to 04 at a time when we already had more than 7 trainees enrolled for our textile recycling and fashion designing program.
Early this year, we were able to acquire a Butterfly Embroidery Machine and a Singer Sewing Machine and our number of trainees had risen to 11 permanent trainees.

@ecodesigns was started in 2017 and in less than two years, we have been giving young girls the opportunity to get empowered and make a difference in their communities.
In December, we will be graduating two of our trainees who are now experts in textile recycling and fashion designing and we look forward to seeing the ripple effect in these our trainees as they shall join us in our quest for women empowerment and environmental protection.
This is our story and if you are inspired, then ....

#Call2Action

We can do more but we lack materials and machines to increase our textile recycling and women empowerment project. We have 11 trainees and 02 Training Directors but have just 06 machines which are not enough for the 13 young girls who are striving to get empowered as well as clean-up the world. It is for this reason that @ecodesigns is striving to raise funds to purchase 7 machines so that we can double our productivity and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our textile recycling and fashion designing training.

Learn more about Ecodesigns at https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@ecodesigns/introducing-ecodesigns-a-textile-recycling-and-fashion-designing-hub-that-is-empowering-young-women

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