Chinese Company Donates $15m To Manage Fashion Waste In Kantamanto

• Director of the Or Foundation, Liz Ricketts has applauded Chinese company Shein for contributing to a good cause
• The fund will be spread across three years with the main aim of tackling the fashion waste situation in Accra
• Kantamanto receives about 15 million second-hand clothing as imports from fashion brands on a weekly basis

Chinese fashion company Shein has pledged a sum of $15m to aid in dealing with the growing fashion waste in Kantamanto, Accra.

The fund, which is from a $50m pot, will ensure that the current situation at Kantamanto is taken care of.

Speaking at a global fashion summit in Copenhagen, the director of Or Foundation, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Kantamanto, Liz Ricketts revealed that her foundation will use the fund to assist fashion-waste workers who aid in managing fashion waste.

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She said 'the money will fund training programmes for Kantamanto women to become apprentices, help community businesses in recycling textile waste and improve working conditions at the market.'

They are economic migrants from north Ghana, and are often women and children, some as young as six. They’re carrying clothing bales on their heads which weigh 55kg, being paid a dollar a trip, and coming home to sleep on concrete floors.

Some carry their babies on their back. Sometimes they fall backwards because of the weight of the bales, and their children are killed [underneath them]

Shein received plaudits from Liz for initiating such a laudable project, whiles calling on other brands to emulate them.

What we see as truly revolutionary is Shein’s acknowledgment that their clothing may be ending up in Kantamanto, a simple fact no other major fashion brand has been willing to state as yet

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The NGO's director disclosed that about 15 million second-hand clothes arrive in Ghana every week, with about 40% of them ending up as waste and polluting the environment.

Ghana doesn’t have landfill or incinerators. The clothing enters the environment; some of it goes into the oceans – there are millions of garments on the ocean floor, and the currents push the garments on to the beach.

A weekly clinic is run by Or Foundation to ascertain the severity of damage these chores cause to the waste workers.

Generous Ghanaian Youtuber Wode Maya Donates Industrial Sewing Machines To Fashion School In The Volta Region

In other YEN-related news, recently raised $10,000 for a school project. He is back in the news for yet another act of kindness. He has donated some industrial sewing machines to a fashion school in Ho.

He says he made the donation in fulfilment of a promise he made to the school.

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Wode Maya, upon visiting the fashion centre, presented five industrial sewing machines to the centre's manager.

He also gave the centre two additional machines on behalf of two US-based Ghanaians, Mr Francis Opoku and Mr Boateng Kofi Adjena.

Source: YEN.com.gh