Tag: inclusion
Period poverty and designing eco-friendly sanitary pads
Thami Schweichler
Social designer, entrepreneur, and impact leader based in Amsterdam, whose work sits at the intersection of circularity, social justice, and entrepreneurship.
As the founder and CEO of the United Repair Centre, he has pioneered a scalable B2B clothing repair model that partners with major fashion brands to extend the life of garments while simultaneously creating meaningful employment for people with limited access to the labour market, including newcomers and refugees.
Prior to this, Thami co-founded Makers Unite, a social enterprise that empowers refugees and local creatives through sustainable design projects and circular production. This initiative gained international recognition after winning the What Design Can Do Refugee Challenge in 2016. Thami’s vision challenges fast fashion by embedding repair, reuse, and inclusion into the industry’s infrastructure.
Mary Nyaruai Mureithi
Powerful advocate for dignity, gender equality, and a sustainable future by amplifying grassroots voices on global stages. Beyond Nyungu Afrika, she empowers the next generation of female entrepreneurs as a pan-African pitching and entrepreneurship trainer, helping young women confidently present their ideas and reach their full potential. For Mary, design is activism, and every product is a step toward systemic change.
Driven by an activist heart and firsthand exposure to the harsh realities of period poverty, where girls are forced to exchange sex for pads, use unsafe alternatives, or suffer health issues from poor-quality products, Mary designed a better solution. Through Nyungu Afrika, she pioneers a circular economy model that transforms agricultural waste, like pineapple leaves and maize husks, into a patent-pending, biodegradable, tree-free pulp for eco-friendly sanitary pads. Her innovation tackles both period poverty and the harmful impact of imported disposable pads on health and the environment.
From Sarajevo to Kyoto: Crafting Sustainable Design Futures
NEXT GEN DESIGN by David Jablonski
Too Late to Be a Pessimist: A Radical Vision for Urban Food Systems
Birgit Lohmann
Bridging design, research, and curatorial innovation, Birgit continues to shape contemporary design discourse.
Foreseeing the impact of digital media, in 1999 she co-founded designboom, the world’s first online magazine, illustrating information on art, architecture, and technology.
Beyond her editorial work, Birgit has contributed as a design historian for international auction houses and justice departments, while continuously engaging with the design community through lectures and exhibitions, leveraging her extensive experience in design and product development.
As of now, Lohmann is involved with various initiatives, including her new project called “NOT COMPROMISED,” which debuted at Milan Design Week 2024. The exhibition challenged perspectives on sustainability, featuring works like Boonserm Premthada’s outdoor collection made from elephant dung. Advocating for non-anthropocentric coexistence, for a world where human presence protects rather than harms, while fostering education and public dialogue in contemporary art.
Amanda Pinatih
Amanda is an art historian, PhD candidate and Curator of Design and Contemporay Art at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. She revisits the museum’s collection from new perspectives, exploring the intersections between design, art, social, political, decolonial, environmental and economic issues.
Recently, she has co-curated the exhibitions Unravel: the Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, When Things are Beings and Formafantasma – Oltre Terra.
Meanwhile, as part of her PhD at VU Amsterdam, Pinatih is studying Indonesian objects related to issues of memory and belonging in diasporas, analysing their activation by contemporary artists to commemorate or reinterpret their hybrid identity. She is also co-founder of the Design Museum Dharavi in Mumbai (IN), the first museum of its kind, that was based in the homegrown neighbourhood of Dharavi.