2. RESEARCHPROBLEMPoor people need more entrepreneurial opportunities to escape poverty.

THE STORYIn Kenya’s Mathare Valley, one of the oldest slums in Africa, over half a million people live in tin shacks, often cramming 8-10 people in mud-floored rooms. It is a valley notorious for drugs, prostituion, and violence, and so it is difficult to find opportunities to escape those conditions. Entrepreneurship is the solution for many single mothers there. In the past, women have successfully operated their own business with the help of a micro-financing organization called Jamii Bora.

A woman named Jane, who used to prostitute herself to sur-vive, made use of the loans from this organization and started a successful dress business. She would buy old dresses and redesign them, adding her own creativity with frills and ribbon additions. She would then sell these dresses on the streets and women would surround her, wanting to purchase a dress for their daughters sweet 16. She later moved out of the slums to a new development.

1. DEFINE

CONSUMER -poor people that want to escape poverty by en-trpreneurial means. -people that have some kind of hand skill (ex. sewing)-people like Jane-the single mothers of the Mathare Valley slums who want to purchase fashion-able shoes in celebration of their daughers’ mile-stones

Jane’s story tells us that everybody, no matter where they stand on the economic spectrum, wants to make decisions for themselves and take charge of their own life. Humanitarian aid would never had gotten her out of the slums.

4. RAPID-PROTOTYPING3. IDEATIONFASHION SHOES FOR THE POORPeople in the slums bought Jane’s dresses and jewelry, proving that beauty and aes-thetics are all desired things across all economic spectrums. Hence, to complement these goods affordable fashion shoes will be designed for young girls or women in the slums using material scraps and hand-woven textiles.

Shoes must be...1. made from locally sourced materials that are cheap or free (old shoes, scraps from trash, factories, land fills)2. easy to construct, from mini-mal number of pieces3. colorful, fashionable, and aesthetically pleasing for young girls and women (hand-woven textiles from looms)4. durable5. protective6. relatively comfortable

MATERIALSCotton woven textiles for upper

Rubber tire scraps for soleCotton/wool lining, whatever is available

Thread

ONE PIECE CUT-OUT FOR QUICK AND EASY CON-

STRUCTION

4. RAPID-PROTOTYPING CONT.

ALTERNATE VIEWS

5. IMPLEMENTTEXTILE INDUSTRY ESTABLISHMENT

WHY THE LOOM1. does not require electricity 2. produces more durable and better-textured fabrics than mills3. easily adaptable in rural settings, no need to com-mute to cities to work

Purchase textile loom with loan from Jamii Bora.

Purchase old shoes to revamp with woven textile designs OR construct entirety of shoes from scraps using unibody template.

Sell finished products on the streets.

Incure profits and use to pay off loan.

Continue business and incure more profits to purchase a second loom for increased demands.

FINAL DESIGN

RUBBER SOLE(TIRE SCRAPS)

LEATHER / WOVENTEXTILE UPPER