YAMAFRIK-FASHION
THE PROBLEM: ‘The illiteracy rate in Guinea is very high; the majority affected are women, due to the traditional hierarchy and patriarchy in the community. Tradition and patriarchy insist that women must work as housewives. From an early age, girls are groomed to become future wives by helping their mothers with their chores. Most of them end up being widowed or divorced with children without profession. After realizing fieldwork, I realized that this is causing a great problem of vulnerability among women in the community. Why we created Yamafrik, a fashion project which will help those girls and women to find a job that will improve their lifestyle for tomorrow.’’
SOLUTION: YAMAFRIK is a fashion project for transforming local fabric into different items as the high-quality products of African styles such as Shoes, Jewelry, Clothes, Belt hats, etc. It will deeply engage young girls (disadvantaged), handicaps, and the marginalized (widows with children without a profession) from rural areas. It will train mentioned categories from rural areas to urban cities, from poverty to professionalism to give a sense of their life. It will be a mini-industry for production with a workshop beside to train the three categories mentioned to join in the industry or engage in their own career. It is the profit project launched by the NGO: United Action for Community Development as part of its mission to fulfill women's empowerment and equal opportunity. The project is on the Seed Stage looking for the fund and the sponsors to be realized in Conakry Guinea.
OPPORTUNITY OFFER: YAMAFRIK will offer free tuition vocational training courses to the young girls in vulnerable situations, marginalized people, and handicaps in the community (e.g. apprenticeship of ICT and Tailoring and Fashion-Design and other pieces of training related to fashion).
THE RESULT STATEMENT WITH QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE GOALS :
Mobilizing and realizing change: marginalized people and their access to opportunities and resources in developing countries" in which we will start with local people. We want to empower and train a total of 200 girls (women and young girls), disabled and marginalized people every 5 years in rural areas in a professional field, the majority of the trainees will either start their own business or stay with us to expand the Yamafrik fashion industry by training arrivals at the industry. Furthermore, Yamafrik will not remain as a mini-industry with a workshop on the side; we want to develop it to become the biggest fashion industry in Guinea to create jobs for young girls (women) to keep their lives stable and a sustainable income so that they are not dependent on parents or husband. Yamafrik will not be dependent on sponsors or global funds; it will be dependent on its own products made by the industry.
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES :
Yamafrik will offer different products (Shoes, Clothes, Bags, Belt, Jewelry, etc) suitable for all needs and ages: the company will train the actors (women) to be ready for future development and professionalism in the fashion industry; it will transform local fabric into all types of fashion for all ages. The fabric will be transformed according to the needs of the customers and styles to attract our local and foreign customers, which will create jobs for social change, rural and urban economic growth for young women in poor areas practically by manufacturing and designing the products. Our actors will be able to contribute to the creation of the "Yamafrik" brand and bring ideas from their own to our online platform. Our customer service will be in charge of uploading the items to the website, and they will be available for our local and international customers. We will transport our goods to the four corners of the world such as shipment - various tasks such as packing the goods or loading them for shipping in collaboration with the national and international shipping company. We will also collaborate with local shops to sell our items.
MARKETING PLAN :
We will use direct advertising to the local population by exposing the market of our project on national television (R.T.G) and organize a day of a fashion show by inviting national celebrities, artists, musicians, government members to wear our products; this will be the day when young African models will present our products to the public. We will create a social media platform or 'YAMAFRIK' page on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, distribution of printed brochures, and a website to reach our target customers. We will also have volunteer ambassadors on the continent and abroad. Who will organize events in the fashion world to share our social development and products with fashion professionals and amateurs? We will reach out for partnership and sponsorship with the national and international fashion industry, such as the Tony Elumelu Foundation, H&M, the DO School in Germany, and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in our home country.
MILESTONES :
The long-term goal we have set for the project Yamafrik is to be among the biggest fashion production and selling brand on the continent. Besides, it will also set a fund for young people in vulnerable young people to achieve their goals.
REQUEST FOUNDED NEEDED: The fund will contribute to the investment of the YAMAFRIK branch and the establishment of our vision as the sustainable SDG goals for women empowering, gender equality, and eradication of poverty that will be the creation of job for the young people majority female, marginalized people and the handicaps.
YAMAFRIK-BEAUTY:
With Yamafrik we will then be able to assist, and train young people (women) and other categories to a professional level to achieve their goals and make their life much better. The fund will be using order the materials and other necessities.
KEYWORDS:
Women empowering, gender equality, engage young (girls), marginalized and handicaps in the professionalism of entrepreneurship, eradicate of poverty, creation of job for, rural and local economic growth
Mr.Fofana O Kerfala,
The founder of YAMAFRIK and United Action for Community Development
Graduate of Master in International Peace, Conflict and Development Studies
UNESCO Institute for Peace and Development – Jaume I University Castellon - Spain
E-mail:fofana.o.kerfala@outlook.com
E-mail: united-action@socialworker.net
Mrs.Malofo DRAME
Co-Director of the project
Graduate of Human Resources Management
Koffi Annan University
E-mail: yamarik@gmail.com
MATERIALS NEED FOR PROJECT STARTUP:
