The high quality of our products is what makes consumers return and buy more, which in turn creates a sustainable business for our livelihood programs and the mothers involved. One of the biggest challenges we face is ensuring the quality needed to keep our consumers happy, whilst understanding that newly trained mothers are not yet highly skilled but do need a source of income while they are training. First of all, we have our partner Quarkus, a social bagmaking company, whose prototype makers come to Tondo regularly to train new mothers, discuss quality and support whenever needed.

Secondly, the bag making has been split up into several parts. Which part a mother takes care of depends on her skills. Newly trained mothers for example start with simply cutting the textiles. However, there are many women here in Tondo who currently depend on garlic peeling for an income (80 PHP (1,36 EUR) for one bag – which take roughly 4 hours to do) They do not have the time or perseverance now to train to become a sower, but we would like to offer them opportunities too. For these mothers we are now working on new products. With glue and leftover textiles, we have created an earring portfolio. With one morning of training they should be able to earn an income too. We are aiming to have them ready for Mothers day – watch this space!