To provide women coming from vulnerable groups such as refugees an opportunity to enhance their employ ability and start creating their own micro business by developing technical sewing skills thus facilitating their social integration. TEAM since 2017 is pioneer in upcycling – rescuing non recyclable materials coming from events, museums which are discarded as single use plastics.These materials become unique, handmade useful wearable objects like totes, purses and other fashion items by craftsmen refugees living in Greece.We protect the environment, promote reuse, upcycling and support the ethical social integration of refugees . The epitome of circular economy with a social aspect.

The goal of this proposal is to create job opportunities for refugee women, thus facilitating their social integration in the Greek society and empowering them in their role within their families and the broader community. The objectives are to: 1. provide to women refugees an “all around” professional training, for sewing, in order to either learn a new skill or enhance their already acquired sewing skills in manufacturing new items from vinyl banners along the principles of upcycling, slow fashion and other sustainable techniques 2. enable them to start working as home-based tailors by providing them the appropriate technical equipment and consumables. essential to creating new jobs and improving environmental protection for the wider benefit of society. This second objective is very important since according to information, the United Nations will gradually stop financing housing expenses for those staying in houses (rent, utilities etc) and a considerable number of refugees will face a financial stress with many side effects. This training and empowering program wants to extend its ability to make such a process, available to a wider number of refugees and finding innovative new ways of doing this. The operational sustainability of the project is ensured by working within the framework of existing organisational structures from Institute Team for the World. With expertise ranging from awareness raining and training programs, to sewing workshops and hands on sustainability actions , Institute Team for the World is providing the administrative support to maximize the project’s impact.

This is incorporated into project design – as part of this “on the job training” process, students produce actual results by working at home as tailors. The income generated from the provision of this service can be used to cover part of their needs. This is a way to understand deeper the art of sewing and at the same time generating the first income. It is practically a microfinancing operation without the burden/load of paying back the financial resources offered as a tool. In the meantime, the trained women will become the extended production base for INSTITUTE TEAM FOR THE WORLD and will undertake home based projects for the production of upcycled fashion items , which will be part of the larger orders our organization will tap on. In that way they will complement their income in a significant and probably more stable way. Apart from the “hard” sewing skills, the women refugees will be trained in basic commercial and accounting skills and some of them who might be more computer literate will be able to familiarize themselves with specific design software that produces stencils for couture creations.

The coordinator of this initiative is the ngo npo INSTITUTE TEAM FOR THE WORLD. The PEOPLE'S TRUST foundation is supporting financially and monitoring the performance of the project.

INSTITUTE TEAM FOR THE WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL ALLIANCE 2004+ THE PEOPLE'S TRUST