The Ethical Fashion Programme connects some of the world’s most marginalised people to the top of fashion’s value chain for mutual benefit. It enables communities of artisans and micro-manufacturers the majority of them women, to thrive in association with the talents of the fashion world.This develops local creativity, fosters predominantly female employment and promotes gender equality in order to reduce poverty. It also answers the growing demand of consumers that fashion should be fair.

Our business dynamic is paralleled with a social dimension including a rigorous code of ethics and gender equality. All stages of production are designed to empower women; this by raising their daily income long-term and ensuring sustainability through capacity-building, skills training and technical assistance. We believe that giving employment opportunities, meaning a dignified job with fair wages, is the way forward to poverty alleviation and gender equality.

To manage the work of communities on the ground, ITC created Ethical Fashion Africa, also known as « the Hub », located in Nairobi’s GoDown Arts Centre. This not-for-profit entity manages all the business operations and the social agenda of the Ethical Fashion Programme in Kenya and Uganda. Around EFAL (Ethical Fashion Africa Limited) there are a number of small enterprises and cooperatives, developed thanks to the support of the program.

Through our network, some of the poorest people in the world have access to an income which benefits the entire community. The Ethical Fashion Programme has a holistic approach that is 100% dedicated to supporting disadvantaged communities to change their live. We collaborate with a network of self-managed, artisanal groups who together, make up an extended “multi-craft workshop”, spread over a vast geographical area.

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For us, ensuring we minimise further damage to the environment is essential and for this the programme follows different steps to make sure we have best practices for production, promote the use of ecological materials and keep our carbon footprint to a minimum. For all the products made through our programme, we involve product designers from the industry as well as local experts to ensure all processes use environmentally-friendly methods.

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As part of our endeavour to ensure the people involved in our project work under the most accurate and a sustainable standard of labour, our entire programme is a member of the Fair Labor Association. By joining the FLA, we have committed to establishing internal systems for monitoring workplace conditions and maintaining Code standards.

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