A Production Facility in a Homeless Shelter? Yes! While we were looking for a Distribution Partner in Cape Town to set up Sheltersuit South Africa, we found this unexpected hidden gem.
The Ark City of Refuge, houses over 1000 people. This NGO provides a temporary home, food, and clothing to homeless, abandoned, abused, unemployed women, children, and men of all ages.
After they gave us a full tour of the grounds (with schools, kindergarten, skills center, community garden, and many more facilities, The Ark is huge!), they told Bas they had a surprise for us. They opened the doors to what turned out to be a fully equipped sewing factory! ? The original intention of the setup was to create skills development opportunities for residents at The Ark, enabling them to source self-employment when being re-integrated into society. The only thing they were missing was something to work on.
So that’s how we found our production partner in Cape Town to produce the first 250 Shelterbags! Within a period of 4 weeks, a core team consisting of 5 qualified seamstresses, 1 trained fabric cutter, and a trainee seamstress was established and received a salary. ?
This is what we call people helping people!
#sheltersuitsouthafrica 
