The Meaningful Blog: All about the upcoming Meaningful Fashion Project aka Mama Pamba

Mama Pamba - Celebrating the many shapes, sizes and ages of beauty

For the last few weeks or so, I've been hard at work on an upcoming fair trade project for Meaningful Volunteer called Mama Pamba!

What is Mama Pamba?

Mama Pamba is a 100% fair trade fashion label. Mama Pamba means "Mother Cotton" and was chosen based on feedback from supporters of Meaningful Volunteer. Check out the feedback and survey results here.

The beneficiaries of Mama Pamba will be ladies living in the rurally poor community of Buyaya in Eastern Uganda. They will make the fashion items, they will design the fashion items, they will run the fashion label, and they will profit from the organization.

We have big plans for Mama Pamba, but have a whole heap of work to do on it before we take the project to Uganda and hand it over to the ladies in June 2011. Here are some of the highlights of the Mama Pamba project.

Volunteer Involvement
Mama Pamba is going to be huge and there is no way we can do it all on our own, and so we are looking to get volunteers involved as much as we can. Here are some of the roles we have identified

Sewing Trainer
The Sewing Trainer will work right beside the ladies and teach them how to sew.
Fashion Designer
The Fashion Designer will come up with new designs and teach the ladies how to come up with their own designs
Event Planner for the Fashion Show
We plan to launch Mama Pamba at a fashion show in the nearby small township of Sironko. It'll be the first ever fashion show in Sironko and will include loud music (that I won't like...), a catwalk, video cameras, photographers, and as many of the local media as we can get. We're even thinking of having live internet video streaming for the event!

The fashion models will have different shapes, sizes and ages. No feeding into the too-skinny idea of beauty here!

The Event Planner will plan the fashion show.
Human Resources and Public Relations
The Human Resources Manager will help us choose which ladies will be involved in the project. Not as easy as it sounds! We need to test eye sight; if you can't see, you can't sew (many of the ladies have had their eyes badly affected by HIV/AIDS). We also need to test for hand-eye coordination, relability, and ensure the ladies are non-corrupt (a hard one...).

The Human Resources manager will also be responsible for interviewing the ladies and gathering their stories for publishing on the Mama Pamba blog and on the Mama Pamba web site.
A Photographer/Videographer
Vlogging (video blogging) is going to an essential part of Mama Pamba and help us to generate some buzz. The photographer/videographer will help us with the publish the vlogs, as well as help us document the project with some cool photographs

Environmental Packaging

Down with plastic! All Mama Pamba items will be packed in a reusable cloth bag.

Distributors
We know that there will be many people who will love this project and want to support it, but just can't make the financial commitment to volunteer and head all the way over to Uganda. As a result we'll be providing them opportunities to get involved by becoming a distributor.

A distributor gets

Their own Mama Pamba business card
Clothing samples
Order Forms
A Mama Pamba video
A distributor pack explaining the best ways to sell the product
A how-to booklet about running Mama Pamba fashion shows and Mama Pamba fashion parties

Ways to get involved with Mama Pamba

Volunteer!
We'll need a whole army of volunteers to help us out in June 2011. Send us an email if you want to volunteer.
Sponsor a Sewing Machine
The number of ladies involved in this project is going to be limited by the number of pedal powered sewing machines we can get. Send us an email if you want to sponsor a sewing machine
Vote!
In the next week or so, we will have some logos for Mama Pamba. Make sure you vote for your favorite logo