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Fairloom

Vital Stats

Annie D

Westport, MA

people helped40
People Doing It 0

The Problem

Seventy-nine percent of adults Terra Prometida, located in the second largest favela (slum) in Brazil, do not have an education past the fifth grade and 83% of adults earn less than US$250 per month. A vast majority of women are unemployed, while there exists a unique, cultural art in the community that is quickly dying. With the guidance of Fairloom, artisans from Terra Prometida are learning and preserving cultural arts and producing marketable textile items. They are creating just employment and returning funds from international sales to develop and operate community education programs.

Plan of Action

We are enabling artisans to restructure their own communities to be sustainable, helping them develop and support community education programs, promote reinvestment in their children’s education, while in the process preserving endangered cultural arts. Fairloom also provides children across the globe with access to various world and generational cultures through a program of communication. Fairloom is developing a women’s fair-trade handicraft group in the community of Terra Prometida, Brazil and selling their goods internationally.

Project Updates

9/8/07-The Do Something grant funds were spent on purchasing design supplies and on wages for a design coordinator/instructor from the artisan group. This enabled the lace maker artisans to express their own creativity and design on their own without the influence from a “professional” designer. The artisans created several cell phone case designs and 2 different bikinis! The cell phones are ready to be produced and sold, and the bikinis need slight work for functionality. The bikinis will most likely be ready for production in the spring. They are beautiful and unique! We will see the financial returns from the cell phone designs after the holiday shopping season. Thank you for the means to make this happen!

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