1. DEFINE PROBLEM
Poor people need more entrepreneurial opportunities to escape poverty.
2. RESEARCH Jane’s story tells us that everybody, no matter where they stand on the economic spectrum, wants to make decisions for themselves and take charge of their own life. Humanitarian aid would never had gotten her out of the slums.
CONSUMER
THE STORY
In Kenya’s Mathare Valley, one of the oldest slums in Africa, over half a million people live in tin shacks, often cramming 8-10 people in mud-floored rooms. It is a valley notorious for drugs, prostituion, and violence, and so it is difficult to find opportunities to escape those conditions. Entrepreneurship is the solution for many single mothers there. In the past, women have successfully operated their own business with the help of a micro-financing organization called Jamii Bora. A woman named Jane, who used to prostitute herself to survive, made use of the loans from this organization and started a successful dress business. She would buy old dresses and redesign them, adding her own creativity with frills and ribbon additions. She would then sell these dresses on the streets and women would surround her, wanting to purchase a dress for their daughters sweet 16. She later moved out of the slums to a new development.
-poor people that want to escape poverty by entrpreneurial means. -people that have some kind of hand skill (ex. sewing) -people like Jane -the single mothers of the Mathare Valley slums who want to purchase fashionable shoes in celebration of their daughers’ milestones
3. IDEATION FASHION SHOES FOR THE POOR People in the slums bought Jane’s dresses and jewelry, proving that beauty and aesthetics are all desired things across all economic spectrums. Hence, to complement these goods affordable fashion shoes will be designed for young girls or women in the slums using material scraps and handwoven textiles. Shoes must be... 1. made from locally sourced materials that are cheap or free (old shoes, scraps from trash, factories, land fills) 2. easy to construct, from minimal number of pieces 3. colorful, fashionable, and aesthetically pleasing for young girls and women (hand-woven textiles from looms) 4. durable 5. protective 6. relatively comfortable
4. RAPID-PROTOTYPING ONE PIECE CUT-OUT FOR QUICK AND EASY CONSTRUCTION
MATERIALS Cotton woven textiles for upper Rubber tire scraps for sole Cotton/wool lining, whatever is available Thread
4. RAPID-PROTOTYPING CONT.
ALTERNATE VIEWS
5. IMPLEMENT
TEXTILE INDUSTRY ESTABLISHMENT
Purchase textile loom with loan from Jamii Bora.
WHY THE LOOM
1. does not require electricity 2. produces more durable and better-textured fabrics than mills 3. easily adaptable in rural settings, no need to commute to cities to work
Purchase old shoes to revamp with woven textile designs OR construct entirety of shoes from scraps using unibody template.
Sell finished products on the streets.
Incure profits and use to pay off loan.
Continue business and incure more profits to purchase a second loom for increased demands.
FINAL DESIGN
RUBBER SOLE (TIRE SCRAPS)
LEATHER / WOVEN TEXTILE UPPER