Fast fashion retailers produce millions of tons of waste each year. This is merchandise that has been returned by customers or hasn’t sold in a season. They haven’t got the resources or systems to process this waste efficiently. Millions of children are being raised in single-parent households. Mothers rely on the meagre state grant for survival. Most mothers haven’t completed school and struggle to find work that pays a living income.

We have strategic partnerships in place with most of South Africa’s major retailers who donate all their excess (customer returns, store damages, end of season and bulk rejections) merchandise to our Clothing Bank and Appliance Bank programmes. We use this “waste” to inspire previously disadvantaged unemployed mothers and men to start small informal retail trading businesses. We carefully select self-motivated individuals and enrol them in our 2-year training programme. They receive over 1000 hours of training and support and start running a business within 2 weeks of joining the programme. They buy the discounted merchandise and sell it with the objective of earning at least R4000 per month. They use this income to eradicate poverty in their lives.

The GROW with Educare project provides women living in poorer communities the opportunity to run an excellent private fee-paying, early learning centre that is also a viable business.

This case study has been created as part of Footprints Africa's work to build a comprehensive open-source database of circular economy initiatives in Africa. We are doing this in collaboration with the African Circular Economy Network (ACEN), as part of our programme to support the circular economy transition in Africa.

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