The Impact Of Your R2R Piece

Over the last 13 years, here's our impact to date:

Over 1000 artisans trained across 16 communities in the Philippines. That means over 1000 dignified and empowered artisans who are weaving joyful stories: their own and ours.
Thousands of kilograms of textile waste upcycled. Our artisans weave textiles that were factory rejects or overstocked over the years! This doesn’t even make a dent on our global waste problem, but we’d rather start small than not start at all! 100 000+ hours artisan livelihood created These hours represent food on the table, education for their children, home improvements, savings, and even investments! Our Commitment We’ll continue all these and then some... Through many years of hustling, failing, showing up, getting up, surviving, and thriving, we always do our best to be better. We’ll strive to become an even more compassionate and kind company to our team members, artisans, partners, and the world we live in so we can build a better normal together.

Our Business Model:

A truly inclusive end-to-end social enterprise.

We’re intentional about creating a super integrated, opportunity-providing social enterprise from the beginning. This is what we have in our supply chain––for now!

Our supply chain is driven by our two principles on design and governance:

Principle 1: Collaborative, Market-driven & Artisan-considerate Design Approach

Our design team is comprised of our product development team, sales and marketing team, supply chain team, and our advocates! Design in R2R isn’t a department. It’s a way of doing things and is a tool for creativity, compassion, and excellence. 

Principle 2: Inclusive Decision-making & Governance

Our artisans are represented in our management team and board! We believe that in order to truly change things, we can’t monopolize the conversations and decisions that affect so many. 

Opening opportunities for livelihood is not enough; we have to open the opportunities to decision-making and governance. 

 

R2R's collaborative, inclusive, market-driven design approach

 

1. Community Sourcing

We want our products to last for a really long time, so we scour the country and other parts of the world for the best materials. We also consciously choose other artisan-created materials. We love working with other social enterprises who provide livelihood and opportunities to more local artisan and Indigenous communities! 

2. Community-based Weaving

A big and constant part of our design is the signature R2R weave. Our community artisans weave these and since most of them are mothers, we’ve created a unique system that allows them to work from their homes. Every quarter, we collect and collate the “commitment hours” of each artisan and translate these into products and job orders. 

3. Centralized Production & Assembly Workshop

Our in-house workshop artisans are experts in creating top notch products out of delicate artisan materials. We put together our materials, artisan-woven panels, and community-sourced materials in our in-house workshop, where another group of artisans sew and assemble them into bags and more fashion and home accessories. 

4. Sustainable Market Access

For our customers in Canada & USA, we’re proud partners with Cambio & Co., an ethical fashion company building bridges between Filipinos in the diaspora and the Philippines.

5. Creative, Compassionate & Empowering Storytelling

Our artisans aren’t just workers who manufacture things. They’re storytellers and makers of culture. We make sure to integrate our artisans into our R2R brand and narrative, and involve them in conversations about how they want to be represented. 

Beyond Livelihood

Aside from providing a sustainable livelihood for the community artisans we partner with, we also created the following programs with them. Our process is participatory and there are lots of ideas here that came from our community partners.

Salamat, Advocates!