STAND Up! Textile Eco-Innovation Challenge

Ahla Fawda Challenge: Fabric Positive

Apply innovative upcycling techniques to donated fabrics and related materials

About Ahla Fawda

Ahla Fawda is an independent non-for-profit organization registered in 2014, in Lebanon. Its mission is to stand with those affected by hardship, providing essential support, empowering talents, and instilling positive change. Its activities have grown to respond to the emerging needs of the community focusing on humanitarian, cultural, and environmental services with a circular economic and community engagement approach.

Why the challenge is launched

Fabric Positive aims at applying innovative upcycling techniques to donated fabrics and related materials: minimizing the textile waste coming from discarded donated clothes by repurposing the damaged fabrics into appealing fashion garments and applying innovative design and upcycling techniques to produce beautiful, functional, and highly impactful items and products.

Ahla Fawda receives large donations of clothing and fashion items on a weekly basis, some of which are damaged or out of fashion and thus unsuitable for direct distribution to beneficiaries. The main challenge is transforming fabric waste into new creations and promoting upcycled fashion and home accessories.

Efforts include combining fabrics with other materials, resulting in innovative fashion items and home accessories to:

Benefit a larger number of beneficiaries
Create a market for new products
Cut down on waste and change the mindset on waste management through the refurbishment of fabric waste.

How to participate in the challenge

If you are a Lebanese early and growth stage venture in the textile and clothing sector or a Lebanese independent entrepreneur offering a potential innovative solution to the challenge, head to The Switchers’ Open-Eco Innovation Platform, create an account, and ‘Submit a new idea’.

Make sure to include the following in the description of your solution:

What is the solution you are proposing?
How is it solving the challenge in question?
Why is it innovative?
How is it sustainable?
How your venture/innovation can be beneficial to the company in question?
Prove the feasibility of your solution.
How are you planning to spend the voucher of €20,000, noting that the budget can be spent on technical assistance and external expertise?

Feel free to attach any document that can give us a clearer idea about the innovative solution and how you are planning to implement it.

Why you should apply

Voucher of €20,000 for the selected solution to develop and implement the solution and to be spent on technical assistance and external expertise.
Access to the company’s experience, know-how, expertise, and networks
Visibility services
Support in positioning the startups in the market (brand awareness)
The ability to revolutionize the industry and create innovative upcycled designs, leverage our resources and expertise to establish a prominent presence in the fashion world.
Possibility to take part in the weekly thriving market to showcase and sell their upcycled products and other upcycled fashion and homeware (Ahla Fawda has received acclaim invitations to exhibit at prestigious venues like the Victoria & Albert Museum).

Applications are open till June 20, 2023

Apply now and benefit from €20,000 to implement your innovative solution!

Head to The Switchers' Open-Eco Innovation Platform, create an account, and start your application. The solution will be developed and implemented between July and September 2023.

Get to know the context of this challenge

The challenge is launched by Ahla Fawda in collaboration with   Berytech  in the framework of the  STAND Up! Project,  an  ENICBC Med  funded project that aims to enhance scalable, replicable, and inclusive circular economy ventures in the Mediterranean by developing an ecosystem of business support, innovation, and technology transfer leading to sustainable job creation for youth and women and the agreements between innovators/academy and entrepreneurs/SMEs by means of the available platforms. 