Leathergoods brand wants to give refugee women a chance
03/02/2012
Established Nairobi-based leathergoods brand Adelphi is working with government-appointed consultants to try to set up training, jobs and a finished leathergoods brand for groups of marginalised women.
Adelphi founder Nalina Rupan has come up with the idea as a way of expanding her business while helping some of the poorest people in Nairobi, women, often widows, who have fled war or famine in neighbouring countries and who, otherwise, are frequently in danger of drifting into prostitution as a means of providing for themselves and their families. She has begun teaching leathercraft skills to small groups, but would not like to make the set-up more formal and permanent. She wants to present collections of the leathergoods the women make as a standalone brand within the wider Adelphi range.
If she wins approval, an initial group of about ten women will formally enter the programme, making bags and belts that Ms Rupan hopes to export. She is convinced consumers in Europe and other developed markets will like the quality of the products the refugee women, under her tutelage, can produce and that the back-story behind the leathergoods collections will also prove interesting. “We hope to start this year,” she told leatherbiz.com. “The training is intense and it takes years to reach the productivity and quality levels required, but this idea can help us expand and help these women find a good way to feed their children. What I want is to offer them a long-term solution.”
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