The Social Factory is an innovative social atelier model that provides fair employment, vocational training and empowerment courses to refugee women, particularly single mothers. Creating products from upcycled materials, the project supports the circular economy. Each product carries a label sharing the story of its maker, raising awareness around displacement. By combining employment, training, sustainability, and advocacy, the Social Factory empowers refugee women and drives long-term change.
Refugee women face significant barriers to accessing the labour market due to social marginalisation, as well as educational and gender-related factors. Furthermore, increasing demand leading to overproduction is responsible for human rights abuses in the industry as companies demand quicker production times at rock bottom prices. Garment workers feel the environmental and social impact, often living at the epicenter of natural disasters and experiencing the poor working conditions first hand.
The Social Factory is an intersectional solution, providing fair employment to refugee women, particularly single mothers, through secure jobs and integrated childcare. It also offers six-month textile and empowerment courses to promote economic independence. Using upcycled materials, the project supports environmental protection and circular economy practices. By combining employment, training and sustainability, the Social Factory empowers displaced women and drives long-term systemic change.
The Social Factory is a scalable model with long-term environmental and social impact; reducing consumption of raw materials and thus environmental impact and empowering refugee women. Refugee women will gain; confidence and economic independence through long-term career prospects leading to reduced reliance on social welfare systems or informal labour. With over 20,000 products targeted for production during the project period, we estimate a reduction of 100-150 tons of CO2 emissions.
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