Kimuli fashionability is the Ugandan startup that produces clothes and accessories from plastic waste, which represents an enormous problem for the country.
Plastic, ladies and gentlemen. Even after we ourselves have gone extinct, the world will continue to be submerged in plastic materials — especially in those areas where no regulation exists and efficient waste collection and disposal infrastructure is lacking, such as Uganda. In this country, plastic waste is a serious problem, but there are those who are trying to turn waste into resources: entrepreneur Juliet Namujju has founded the startup Kimuli fashionability, which produces clothes and accessories from plastic.
With a population of 1.5 million, Kampala is the capital and largest city in Uganda and, in this city alone, approximately 28,000 tonnes of plastic waste accumulate every day. Of this, less than half is collected, leaving the remaining 51 per cent on the ground. Of the half that is properly collected, however, it is estimated that only 1 per cent is actually recycled. The result is that the city's streets are overrun with waste: enormous quantities of plastic are dumped in open landfills or burned, posing risks to health and the environment.
In Kampala, plastic waste can block drainage flows, clog drainage channels and increase the risk of flooding in the city. What is more, much of this waste also ends up on agricultural land, where it negatively affects crop growth. The city council has tried to improve matters by providing rubbish bins, collecting waste more frequently and finding ways to incentivise recycling practices, but the situation remains alarming.
The founder of Kimuli fashionability, Juliet Namujju, was orphaned early and grew up with her grandmother, who was also alone and living in extreme poverty in a remote, rural village in Uganda. In such a context, it is easy to imagine how there were no resources for extras — such as dolls to play with, for instance. Dolls that Juliet, guided by her grandmother who was a seamstress, began to make herself, using mainly waste collected around her. What others threw away, Juliet learned to use as a resource from a very young age: a mindset that would go on to shape her adult worldview, guided by a philosophy of reuse and recycling and respect for the environment.
After secondary school, Namujju enrolled at the St Elizabeth vocational institute in Mengo, another city in Uganda, where she took a course in fashion and design before going on to attend the Social innovation academy in the district of Mpigi, an institution that trains young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with the aim of turning them into social entrepreneurs, building their capacity to transform challenges into solutions. "It's here that I developed the idea of turning plastic waste into components for clothing, and it's here that I received a sewing machine and an initial capital of 50,000 Ugandan shillings."
And so, at the age of twenty, she founded Kimuli fashionability: a brand whose fundamental assets include not only a commitment to sustainability and environmental protection, but also the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce — another aspect Namujju has carried with her since childhood, when her father had both legs amputated following a road accident. "After the amputation he was dismissed, and no employer seemed to believe in his abilities any more. Ever since then I have always fought to change the mindset people have towards people with disabilities."
"Something is only waste if you throw it away": this is the philosophy of Juliet Namujju, who founded Kimuli fashionability on the conviction that behind every discarded piece of plastic there may lie the opportunity to create something beautiful — kimuli, in fact, means "flower" in the local language. The first step is collection: more than 300 kilogrammes a month recovered from landfills by a team of marginalised young people from both rural and urban backgrounds. The second is the cleaning process, with women sorting and washing the plastic to remove dirt and mud before leaving it to dry in the sun.
Once cleaned and dried, the scraps are then cut according to the product to be made. The resulting pieces are subsequently combined with African fabrics — kitengi, sisal and barkcloth — and transformed by a team of seamstresses into one-of-a-kind pieces that can take the form of raincoats, tote bags, wallets or laptop cases. People with disabilities and from disadvantaged backgrounds are employed throughout the production process, which today provides work for more than 130 workers.
Juliet Namujju and her team are among the winners of Next generation Africa, a programme promoted by the Italian embassy in Uganda and the association BeEntrepreneurs Aps, whose aim is to support the growth of the most promising entrepreneurial initiatives in the Silicon Savannah — an area of the African continent with a high rate of development, so named for the presence of tech companies and a general climate of economic dynamism.
