Photo sourced: clothestogood.com
MENTHER INCLUSIVITY
Creating A Fully Inclusive, Green Ecosystem
O
ver the last nine years Clothes to Good (CTG) has synergised an ecosystem of like-minded organisations, led by individuals committed to meaningful, sustainable, positive social impact in enterprise development, inclusion (i.e. especially people with disabilities) and caring for our environment. CTG finds great joy in using what others categorise as “waste” to empower community women through micro-business development, create jobs for people with disabilities and creating educational resources for children in low-resourced early childhood development (ECD) centres. We are passionate about using an asset-based approach and empowering
communities to “use what they have, where they are”. Through the sourcing, sorting, up-cycling and selling of post-consumer pre-loved clothes CTG programmes collaborate with high resourced schools, businesses, nonprofit organisations, the public, people with disabilities and their families, and people previously disadvantaged into a sustainable ecosystem. Together, the valuecycle includes people, passion, technology and post-consumer environmental change resulting in sustainable, high social impact. We are especially passionate about people with disabilities and the challenges generally preventing people with disabilities from becoming gainfully employed. This is
reflected by the current South African unemployment rate of 99% among this community. They remain critically dependent on their parents, particularly their mothers, who are often forced to remain at home to provide care, hindering the family’s opportunities and potential to find pathways out of poverty. One of CTG’s focus areas is therefore on a micro-business development programme for Mothers of Children with disabilities. Critical to achieving this sustainable goal was to marry a real social and environmental challenge with a solution that addresses some of the barriers to empowering mothers of children with disabilities, people with disabilities and people wanting to participate in this
Inspire | Connect | Empower
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