Abwezi School Bags
Upcycling bags locally from disposed plastic bags enable Abwezi to keep prices for the school bag affordable. Besides offering the bags to individuals who can afford it, the enterprise also targets NGOs, companies and well-wishers that buy bags by the bulk and distribute them for free to less privileged communities. Households with no access to electricity make up about 90% of the Malawian population, thus the integrated solar panel provides these families with clean and free energy for lighting, facilitating after-school-learning.
- Increasing the education passing rate of 500 school children through Abwezi’s first initiative that issued 500 bags to a primary school in Blantyre
- Giving school bags to 10,000 school girls and boys by 2021
- Distributing school bags with solar lights to 1,000 off-grid rural households, reaching 360 remote villages
- Reducing carbon emissions as well as the dangers associated with using candles or kerosene lamps, by providing solar powered lamps integrated into school bags
- Providing income to more than 30 women and 15 youth, while employing 9 of these women permanently
- Realising total savings of 50,000 USD
Partners
Orbis-expeditions is an NGO providing skills and technology transfer to Abwezi employees as well as start-up capital of USD800
Invest Pack Solutions provides plastic bags for recycling for Abwezi to increase its scale of production.
Sky Energy is a solar company that provides Abwezi with customized solar panels to integrate into the upcycled school bags.