G-lish Foundation

Producing baskets from plastic and cloth scraps using traditional Bolgatanga weaving techniques
Waste Management
Bolgatanga
Ghana

G-lish collects plastic rubbish and scraps of African cloth and trains youth and women to transform those materials into twine. Skilled basket weavers weave the plastic and cloth twine into baskets, home-wares and artwork using traditional weaving methods—thus preserving cultural heritage while helping alleviate poverty and tackling entrenched and overlooked environmental waste problems.

G-lish pays fair prices while implementing environmentally friendly practices and empowering the weavers and producers.

In addition to baskets, G-lish has started developing artwork for export markets. 

 

G-lish Foundation undertakes green projects that:

  • Generate income
  • Sustain the environment & Bring about social change in impoverished communities in Ghana.

G-lish does this by:

  • Providing access to international markets for products which generate an income for the people who make them
  • Recycling plastic and fabric waste, and transforming it into valuable material that is woven into high-quality products by skilled weavers
  • Designing new products for international markets
  • Counselling families on the value of education, and ensuring children are enrolled in school
  • Planting trees
  • Advocating for fair prices by global buyers on behalf of the thousands of basket weavers in the region
Eco-Inclusive Impacts
G-lish produces and sells innovative and sustainable products from wastes to create income, preserve traditional skills and the environment by paying fair prices to labour.
  • Offering a fair and sustainable income for women and youth.
  • Educating business skills and women's rights. 

 

  • Reducing waste and promoting plastic recycling by processing recycled materials. 
  • Collecting discarded drinking water plastic and scrap African fabric and trains youth and women to transform those materials into twine.

  • Creating high quality and high value products to generate higher than fair trade levels of income for all producers.

 

Partners

G-lish collects plastic rubbish and scraps of African cloth and trains youth and women to transform those materials into twine. Skilled basket weavers weave the plastic and cloth twine into baskets, home-wares and artwork using traditional weaving methods—thus preserving cultural heritage while helping alleviate poverty and tackling entrenched and overlooked environmental waste problems.

Desert Growth Foundation, a micro-finance NGO established in 2007 in Bolgatanga, will provide money management training for the project participants.

Trashy Bags, a retailer for baskets in Accra, is providing access to the expat and tourist market.