MIT IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge

BeTu

Team Leader

Anh Sawyer

Team Name

BeTu

Project Summary

Betu is solving 2 problems. (1) Stable work is needed by refugees/immigrants in the US, and women overseas in refugee camps or remote/poverty-stricken regions. (2) In developed countries, women 40+ years of age with disposable income seek a distinctive style and embrace sustainability and innovation, but also want to look professional in management and leadership positions. This target market is largely ignored by the fashion industry. Betu has already identified various immigrant/refugees in the US for finishing part of the manufacturing process, and women from refugee camps or remote/poverty-stricken areas in Morocco and Vietnam that can produce various components of the clothes. Furthermore, BeTu will create a non-profit division, specifically to support the infrastructure of the lives of our immigrant and refugee workers, their families and communities. Anh Sawyer, the founder, is a former Vietnamese refugee and presently the Executive Director at the Southeast Asian Coalition of Massachusetts which serves more than 10,000 client-visits annually of immigrants and refugees from all over the world ( https://www.seacma.org).