https://reasonstobecheerful.world/refugee-artisan-initiative-employment/
"Two glaring statistics stick with Ming-Ming Tung-Edelman, founder of
Seattle-based Refugee Artisan Initiative. “Refugee women have the highest
unemployment rate, about 60 percent,” she says, “and over 85 percent of the
textile waste ends up in landfills.”
She started the Refugee Artisan Initiative (RAI) in 2017 to address both
figures. RAI hires immigrant and refugee women for livable-wage jobs to sew for
small-batch manufacturing, all while upcycling discarded or leftover materials.
In five years the organization has diverted 5,000 pounds of textiles away from
the landfill to their artisans, who have produced 120,000 total items.
Thirty-seven women have earned roughly $500,000 in income, and eight have
launched online shops through a partnership with Etsy.
The seed for RAI was planted when Tung-Edelman enrolled in a fashion
certificate program at University of Washington. She had spent 25 years as a
pharmacist, while sewing clothes for her daughter on the side, and she was
interested in transitioning to a more creative career.
The experience was transformative — particularly when she saw handmade
creations of refugee women who one instructor was teaching to sew. As an
immigrant from Taiwan, Tung-Edelman became interested in how the fashion
industry could provide opportunities for women to gain financial independence.
She set up RAI to help “knock down the barriers of the traditional workforce,”
which she points out, does not accommodate women who have multiple children, do
not speak English, are unable to drive or do not have a US-based education.
The glaring issue of textile waste, which she learned about through the
program, also stuck with her. “It was an
aha moment for me, thinking about
how we could support these women learning new skills with excess textiles, and
creating a circular economy through these jobs,” she says."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
