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5 Steps to Green up Your Closet
5 Steps To A Sustainable Closet Believe it or not, having a sustainable wardrobe is crucial to our planet’s health, and to yours. According to surveys, most people only wear about 20 percent of the clothing in their closets. Coupled with the fact that the average woman has $500 worth of unworn clothing in their wardrobe and you can see that there is clearly a problem. Fast fashion has trained us to buy throw away fashion that’s worn once and thrown out. The average American tosses 82 pounds of textile waste each year, which adds up to 11 million tons of the stuff from our country alone. It’s time to convert…
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The Real Sustainable Supply Chain
Jan 2016 By: Joyce Hu, Creative Director, Wildlife Works What does an ethical production chain really look like for the end of the supply chain, where your products are actually made? We can all point to fair trade practices such as living wages, legal working hours, child-free labor, and safe working environments. But nobody talks about the unsexy details; all the small business and design transactions up the chain that must take place in order to protect those workers’ rights. Most consumers – even designers and buyers – have no idea how every decision at each step of the fashion production chain exponentially impacts the workers’ every day ability to survive and thrive. For…
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Wildlife Works Becomes Africa’s Only Carbon Neutral, Fair Trade Factory
Wildlife Works Becomes Africa’s Only Carbon Neutral, Fair Trade Factory And Launches it’s First Fair Trade USA Collection with Threads for Thought By Joyce Hu Creative Director Wildlife Works We are proud to announce that as of Spring 2015, Wildlife Works became Africa’s first and only carbon neutral, fair trade factory, upon receiving Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) Factory certification. Wildlife Works Fair Trade Apparel Factory: Our factory was founded in 2001 on ethical and fair trade policies, back before the fashion industry even had the words to describe sustainable fashion. Since then, fast fashion has come to dominate and the fashion industry is seeing more and more consequences from the perils of…
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The Strength of One Woman
“Dreams do come true,” that is probably the first thing that Vicky Kimuhu will tell you if you asked her to narrate her life story. Vicky, a single mother of one child, is enthusiastic about the team work involved in shipping finished goods from the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project EPZ factory to their final destination abroad. She’s been with Wildlife Works for just over two years now. “Handling shipping successfully, which is a new thing to me, excites me a lot! Though I am an enthusiastic professional and versatile designer with extensive experience in garment production from the raw material to the end product, I am happy to…
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Wildlife Works Gives Paul Makau Mwanzia a Chance to Do What He Loves Most
Paul Makau Mwanzia, a father of two, has been mechanic at the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project garage for over three years now. Together with his colleagues, he works to ensure that the company vehicles are in top-notch condition at all times. Lucky for Paul that repairing broken vehicles is his favorite thing to do because our vehicles get quite a beating in the rough Kenyan bush terrain. We caught up with him at the garage to learn what he loves most about his job, what challenges him and what makes him smile. We also talked to him about his work and life before he joined the Wildlife Works…
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Nora Matunda Shares Her Tough Journey to Success
Nora Matunda, a mother of four, has been a seamstress at the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project Eco Factory for over 13 years. ‘’I am passionate and motivated by my work because of the quality products we produce as a team. Our work empowers the community with job opportunity, growth, development and wealth creation for our families,” she says. Nora grew up in Maungu, a town adjacent to Wildlife Works sanctuary. ‘’15 years ago, Maungu was a very small village with very few people who depended on mostly charcoal burning and bush meat to live, ’’ she recalls. Growing up in poverty-stricken Maungu provided very little opportunity for young…
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ASOS Invests in their Supply Chain Community, Putting their Money Where their Bottom Line is
ASOS Africa’s line is not only inspired by Africa but is also produced in Africa. ASOS has been working with our production partner, cut-and-sew house SOKO-Kenya, for over four years now. The international fashion company’s commitment to working in Kenya (and in other sustainable ways) has paid off; sales from their green line grow with each collection, which has allowed ASOS to invest deeper in their supply chain community. As a result of ASOS’s continued orders, SOKO-Kenya was able to expand their small coast-side factory into Wildlife Work’s production site in the Kenyan bush located between Tsavo East and West National parks. With our combined resources, we are able to…
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Margaret Mschai Rises Above Life’s Challenges and Shares Her Future Aspirations
Margaret Mschai, a mother of two, makes her living by completing various tasks at the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ eco-clothing factory, and is wholly grateful for it. Her tasks include trimming, folding and packaging the fabric and finished clothes. “I love what I do mostly because it is an important part in the chain of events that creates unique outfits for export,” she says, adding, “We cannot all be machinists or designers. Someone has to trim the loose threads and fold the clothes so that they are presented neatly for the final consumer.” As Margaret never had the chance to continue her education past primary school, she was therefore…
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Fashion Designers Without Borders
By Joyce Hu, Creative Director, Wildlife Works Last month, Wildlife Works was honored to be part of Supply Change’s first annual Fashion Designers Without Borders’ sourcing safari that introduced participants to artisan groups and social enterprises located all over Kenya from Mombasa to the Rift Valley. A group of 6 U.S.-based fashion industry professionals traveled halfway around the world to meet some of Kenya’s most passionate social entrepreneurs that represent what change could mean in the global supply chain. The Wildlife Works team members who joined the group included our Design and Production Manager Yugala, our Kenya Office Manager Cara, our Kenya Production Supervisor Liesl and myself, the Creative Director.…
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Working side by side with SOKO-Kenya
A new addition has come to the Wildlife Works Export Processing Zone (EPZ): SOKO! SOKO Kenya is a clothing production workshop for the export market that aims to create sustainable, fair employment and offer training and skills to some of Kenya’s poorest people. SOKO promotes community-driven, ethical, environmental, fashion-driven garments to the international fashion industry. SOKO first began producing women’s fashion for the European, U.S. and South African markets in 2009. Set up by Founder and Managing Director Joanna Maiden, the factory had been operating from Ukunda, Coast Providence. With increasing production orders, construction of the new factory at the Wildlife Works EPZ started earlier this year and Joanna’s team…
