‘Every day presents us a new challenge,’ says Thami Schweichler of Makers Unite, one of the five finalists of the WDCD Refugee Challenge. The team finished a six-week pilot and is currently implementing the lessons learned into the social business model that is being developed.
Makers Unite connects refugees and EU locals by co-designing engaging products and narratives, starting with upcycling life vests and boats collected on Greek shores. The platform offers the first steps for refugees to regain dignity, to connect with locals, to build new networks and to restart their lives. It enables newcomers and EU citizens to develop meaningful relationships while creating products that support the circular economy.
Started in Amsterdam and Athens, Makers Unite is a collaborative journey about learning how to share and develop a new common culture collectively. The revenue of the Makers Unite design collection will be directed to the makers and the refugee’s cause.
Pilot program
Since being selected as finalist, Makers Unite re-structured its core team and focused on the development of a pilot program to measure the assumptions on its social inclusion program.
‘Our main achievements so far are the establishment of a new fully equipped workspace, the running of a pilot program with about 20 new participants and the setup of our core-team,’ tells Thami Schweichler. ‘Today our team has about 10 people focused on the development of our program, the design of a new collection of products and the streamlining of communication.’
What stage is the project in right now?
‘We have run our pilot phase for about 6 weeks and now we are in the stage of implementing the learnings acquired into our social business model. The previous period has shown a lot of opportunities that we were not initially exploring, therefore at this moment our goal is to fine tune our model viability and having Makers Unite as a social enterprise that is ‘investment ready’ for our growth phase.’
Are there big challenges you still have to tackle?
‘Every day present us a new challenge. Our biggest challenge today is bridging the funding gap from where we are until the moment our social enterprise is fully operational. Makers Unite has grown from a simple idea of making products together to a complex matchmaking program that can effectively integrate newcomers into society. We have several layers of development that have to go hand in hand in order to make the whole process work. Today we count a lot on the goodwill of our talented team so we can have their expert input into different areas from service design, to anthropology until product design and production.’
How do you feel about the process so far?
‘The ability of having input from external experts provided by WDCD has helped us bringing our ideas to a broader perspective. This has given us confidence to grow and a lot of good energy to the team. Especially when having positive feedback from global organisations such as UNHCR and Triodos Bank. I must say we are lucky to have gathered a very talented core-team that is committed to bring our project further. So we would like to highlight the gratitude to great volunteers and sponsors that are making Makers Unite possible in this early stage.’