Most SHAWCO projects are designed to be self sustainable, however, SHAWCO still relies on donations. The Rags 2 Riches project was designed to sustain SHAWCO's other projects without the help of donations. The project in itself is a charity shop which sells secondhand clothes collected from richer neighbourhoods. The target customers are two distinct groups: the first one is students that are looking for unique, cheap and quality clothes, the second group is women from the townships that buy clothes from Rags 2 Riches for cheap and resell them back in the townships to make a profit.
The store opened a year and a half ago and is doing well. It has reached a wide audience, still it needs to build a stronger brand image and to make more and more people aware of its goal (mostly children education). Otherwise than marketing, the aim is to empower the women from the townships and to develop a sustainable model of community business that will help improve the business skills of the stakeholders.
(Pictures of the store are to come!)
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