The Or Foundation

Last Friday, we welcomed MP for Clapham & Brixton Hill, for a tour of our facilities and projects across both our Adabraka offices and the Material Technology and Transformation Lab.

The visit began in , our ground floor gallery and retail space featuring upcycled designs by and – two women led cooperatives – before moving upstairs to our Microfiber Lab, where we are analyzing samples for microfibres and microplastics, and our Remanufactory, where upcyclers are producing re-made-in-Ghana products including uniforms.

Across the market at the MTTL, Bell got hands-on in Cassaboard production and visited our Tarn production area, where apprentices produce t-shirt yarn for Kuoro Earth and Dinnani’s crocheted and woven pieces.

Executives from the joined in presenting the MP with Woven Cloth created using t-shirt yarn created by The Or Foundation and woven in partnership with in addition to a Ghanaian flag that was re-made in Ghana at The Or Foundation’s Remanufactory, and a signature “Made In Kanta” tote by

“Najiha Yahaya has a wide smile, a creative impulse so strong that she taught herself to crochet without the help of a smartphone or YouTube, and the kind of courage that allows her to stand before powerful men and defy them to their faces. But if you had met her when she first arrived in Accra alone at 15 and began working as a head porter, or kayayo, carrying heavy bales of secondhand clothing on her head, you might not have seen any of that…”

In her recent story for author Whitney Bauck highlights the realities of the global fashion system where excess clothing becomes an unimaginable burden for women who head-carry bales of secondhand clothing in Kantamanto.

She explores how our team is working alongside these women to implement immediate and long term solutions including our paid apprenticeship & scholarship program that has accompanied over 290 women out of dangerous head carrying.

It’s a beautiful story that amplifies the essential voices of women like Najiha and Huzeima .huzeima while demonstrating the power of solidarity through women like whose generosity created the foundation on which our Mabilgu Program is built.

Please read the story in full at Atmos.earth

Photos by featuring and

From Kantamanto to Lagos Fashion Week, Woven Threads VII: CRAFTED, we took not just a presentation, but a collective, shaped through material, process, and people.

What begins in Kantamanto, where many second-hand garments and materials are discarded, continues in the hands of a growing community of designers and practitioners who rework them into identity, memory, labour, resistance, and possibility.

From reclaimed textiles to weaving, dyeing, crochet, and material experimentation, each practice offers a different way of engaging with what already exists, not as waste, but as a resource.

At this year’s presentation, The Or Foundation brought together designers and makers working across upcycling, circular design, and craft, carrying their practices from the market to our studio, to the Woven Threads stage.

We hold space for all the designers and practitioners whose work shaped this moment, and for the wider Kantamanto community whose daily labour, skill, and knowledge make it possible. Alongside a wider community of craftsmen, tailors, and seamstresses within Kantamanto, each exploring new ways of making through reclaimed materials.

Nakoi - Rebecca Korkor Mensah , Daily Dosage - Emmanuel Tetteh , Mabilgu (The Or Foundation) , Emie Atelier - Apladey Theresah Emefah .atelier, Morhands - Rabi Kudomor , Damtse - Glady Damtse , Humble - Harris Kharin Bennah, Martinson Klothing - Martinson Afari , Master Hanga - Samuel Gyasi .garment
StreetNotSafe - Joshua Baah , KOMA ARC - Derrick Asare , Apprica’s Toggery - Erica Appiah Amankwah , A Bite of Memory - Glory Adom Unique , House of Dsmith - Merilyn Smoth Dodzi Gladys , and Winneba Waivers - Project Justine

This was a collective practice. A different way of making. A different way of seeing. A different way of valuing. Because textile transformation does not begin with the garment. It begins with people.

At Woven Threads VII: CRAFTED, it was clear that Sustainability is not a trend, and it cannot exist in isolation. It lives across systems, in how we produce, consume, discard, source, remake, move, and value. Within this shared installation space, the works by NAKOI unfolded as garments of memory and becoming - pieces that draw on identity, womanhood, and heritage, shaped through reclaimed materials and careful hand processes. Alongside this, woven works developed in collaboration with the Winneba Weavers through Project Justine brought another layer of material knowledge into the space, grounding the exhibition in practices that have long understood care, continuity, and craft.

The question is not only what we make. It is who carries the weight of what is discarded. Kantamanto and other African secondhand markets are not an abstract site of waste. They are a living system of people, labour, skills, talents, creativity and care - constantly working to extend the life of garments within a global system that was never designed to hold them.

Presenting this work in Lagos, alongside designers and cultural practitioners rethinking material, process, and value, was to be part of a larger alignment. A shared insistence that fashion can move differently, and we already have the solutions we need.

Not extractive. Not disposable. But rooted. Regenerative. And accountable to the people within it.

Thank you to and for creating the space for this work to be seen, engaged with, and held in conversation.

And to our team who were on the ground: Eugene, Sammy, Liz, and Branson, for carrying this work into the space with intention.

For the third year in a row, we returned to The Street Academy to mark Earth Month alongside Naa Korle and our proud Planeteers.

This time, with the support of Tide Turners, we went deeper - introducing and honoring her mother, Nshɔɔrna, the great ocean, and reflecting on the many ways we are called to care for her.

In communities like these, on the frontlines of a global textile waste crisis they did not create - the urgency is not abstract as the skate is very clear. It is lived, daily.

Here, “Our Power, Our Planet” is more than just a theme. It is a reminder that transformation is a collective effort and real change happens through community choices each one of us have to make.

Happy Earth Month!

What an incredible time it was with skingourmetgh! 💛💛💛

Circular Economy infrastructure isn’t just about scaling T2T recycling.

Every raining season, choked gutters in and around Kantamanto overflow and bring the market to a halt. Floods ruin millions of garments that could have otherwise been sold and deter customers from shopping, worsening the economic challenges already faced by traders due to rising bale prices and declining quality of secondhand fast fashion products. Soaked clothes end up as waste and further choke the gutters, creating a vicious cycle that compounds environmental challenges and increases the risk of disease.

That’s why we are working with the and the Kantamanto Obroniwawu Businesses Association to clear the drainage system that runs under Kantamanto Market BEFORE the heavy rains arrive this April or May.

Two of the cooperatives emerging from The Or Foundation’s training program — Tide Turners and June 4 Task Force — joined forces to manually clean the 1.5 meter-wide sub-surface storm drain:

On Day One, 154 cooperative members worked diligently for a 12 hour period to clear 400 meters of drain, piling plastic, sand and textile waste onto the main street for the A.M.A to clear.

On Day Two, 161 cooperative members continued to clear the full stretch along Okai Kwei Road, discovering sewage access points that will need to be addressed.

The work continues tomorrow and Wednesday and The A.M.A. reports that 6 truckloads have already been removed.

The drain which runs from the Tema Station area through Okai Kwei Road to the June 4 Market and onward into the Korle Lagoon, had reportedly not been desilted since its construction, resulting in severe blockages that contributed to frequent flooding in the market, even after short periods of rainfall.

We are working with the A.M.A. to device a new system of access points that will make it easier to desilt on a regular basis.

In addition to offering strategic support and over 150 paid personnel, The Or Foundation has provided over GH¢200,000 to fund the cutting of concrete, haulage, on-site first aid service and required safety equipment.

Circular Fashion Starts Here With the Women of Kantamanto

Kantamanto Women’s Association (K.W.A) celebrated International Women’s Day this morning with a powerful Health Walk that brought together over 500 women to promote preventative care and to strengthen unity amongst female entrepreneurs.

Kantamanto — the largest secondhand clothing market in the world — is largely powered by women who operate as traders, upcyclers, seamstresses, head porters, leaders,
cleaners and cooks. Despite their vital contribution to both the local and global economy, these women work without formal protection, retirement security, or adequate recognition. Following last year’s fire, a group of 20 women founded , determined to put the narrative of
crisis, dependency and instability that has plagued the secondhand clothing trade behind them by taking charge of their own wellbeing and finances.

With over 80% of Kantamanto retailers experiencing debt on a regular basis and only 2% having access to healthcare, today’s celebration was a powerful step towards a new future.

And of course, sustainable alternatives were on display. Participants wore secondhand t-shirts that were sourced from and re-printed in Kantamanto, a waste-saving alternative to the otherwise environmentally harmful
“single use” t-shirts that are often created for such events and then quickly discarded.

You can support AND honor all of the women who make your clothes by saying no to disposable fashion, including single use t-shirts.

Want to sponsor future K.W.A events? Get in touch! And have a Happy International Women’s Day!

Our February 20th cleanup with the team was so joyous!

Within 3 hours we had filled the truck, successfully removing 28,032 kg of textile, clothing and other plastic waste.

Not only did we have a fantastic turnout with a total of 301 people from across , and but everyone was in high spirits because we were able to reach further along the beach than ever before. Although this also meant further trips to move the waste from its previous resting place to our truck, everyone was happy to see so much sand!

More SAND than clothes!!!!!
FINALLY!

Restoring Accra’s coastline takes more than physical strength, it requires relentless faith and optimism.

We won’t stop until the job is done.

Come join us! is on the mission every week and we will announce our next public cleanup very soon.

Reach out.
Show up.
Leave inspired.

Valentine’s Day is big business. In the USA alone, consumer spending is expected to reach over $29 Billion USD this weekend. Hopefully those gifts are appreciated and the outfits are repeated but if not, we know where they will end up.

That’s why we hosted “Still Loved” last weekend in The Other Showroom.

Still Loved was a conversation about returning to loving our planet, ourselves and our clothes again. Using Valentine’s Day as a lens, we unpacked how the fashion industry turns love into consumption, hijacking moments we hold most dear and measuring care in purchases.

At the Or Foundation, our work is to expose this cycle of disposability and where it really leads, places like Kantamanto in Accra, where the afterlife of global fashion becomes visible. This was an invitation to pause, reflect, and ask what it would look like to love more intentionally and to treat what we wear as something still worthy of care.

Here’s to making Valentine’s Day truly meaningful 💞 🥂