ROPABLEXI

Reducing consumerism, through the sale and purchase of used clothing, having QR codes taking them to the web page, observing the deposit of money, and benefiting teenagers.

When visualizing that clothing is not degradable and generates a burden to the environment, after its consumption, the problem would be located as an abysmal difficulty that leads to the extreme use of clothing without being properly disposed of. So according to Greenpeace, 100 billion pieces of clothing are manufactured every year. Fast fashion has turned clothing into a disposable item, uncovering a serious problem of raw material use and waste generation. Today, there seems to be no limit to the amount of clothing that can be bought, and even if a person has clothes, he or she will continue to buy enough of them in excess. The causes of this last problem are highlighted in the lack of environmental awareness and education in the families of society. As well as the lack of deposit for the proper disposal of clothing in the fashion industry. The fast fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global emissions and the production of 20% of wastewater worldwide. Washing synthetic clothing releases microparticles; thus, 30% of plastic waste in the ocean is textile microfibers. The fashion industry is one of the most environmentally polluting industries in the world, producing carbon emissions that can lead to climate change and global warming. All these causes lead to unsustainable growth and environmental degradation. 

Dressing is a basic human need, however, modern times force us to buy more clothes than we really need, in addition to causing unnecessary economic expense. The solution to this problem is based on providing financing to those children and adolescents (mainly those without a good economic level) who provide their used clothing to our facilities within the schools. This will be done through a card that each child must request days before the deposit of their clothes. Each card will contain a unique QR code, which when scanned by ROPABLEXI members, the code will allow us to see the information it contains, being directed to the profile of each user that will be found within a web page, where depending on the weight of the deposited garments, a sum of money will be applied to your account. When the boy, girl or adolescent needs to withdraw money from their account, they must go to the establishment and they will be given the amount of money they require according to their funds, requiring that the user has provided at least 1 kilo of clothing, in order to to promote economic savings and train this generation with a high environmental awareness. After the collection of garments, these will be directed to companies that, through a transformation process, will produce new garments that can be reused. This is how we seek to expand first in our country of origin hand in hand with the winners of the Wayra and Startup Peru awards, the second-hand store "Las Traperas", likewise we will also seek the support of the large textile branch "Falabella", through his workshop "Renew, Donate or Reuse". Because clothing can also be sustainable. With the QR Code it will be shown that used garments and can also be reused while obtaining money.

One of Ropablexi's main objectives is to improve the quality of life of children and adolescents in our community so that they can generate their own income in an easy and safe way. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), 23.4% of minors in Peru work. But this population mostly works in unfavorable conditions that in the worst case can lead to put their lives at risk and consequences such as school dropout, human trafficking, prostitution, and more. Our solution seeks to eliminate the risk of this population at the moment of generating income since this will be a fundamental part of the solution. The role of this population will be to collect clothes that they no longer need and then deposit them in the totally safe and nearby places that Ropablex will establish in order to collect the clothes. This population will receive retribution for the amount in grams/kilos that they deposit.

During the past year and this year, my colleagues and I have had different activities that we have been developing and participating in. During those volunteering, such as COVANA, Healthy Youth, WUN, Waves of Help, etc., we have grown as the people we are, allowing us to have more confidence in ourselves and have a great support network and momentum, developing leadership skills, as well as soft skills, which are essential for our daily lives, all with the different activities we have done, as we continue to participate. Regarding teamwork, it has helped us to connect and meet extraordinary people and to improve our communication skills, and strengthen our commitment to the project we were doing, helping us to have a better coexistence respecting cultural diversity, as well as the opinions we have, developing an open-minded profile. Additionally, all this allowed us to have the feeling to continue investigating different goals that we have been seeing, allowing us to develop good work, with a great ability to search for truthful information, having support to the work presented. On the other hand, there is the fact of the commitment we have with each project we do, allowing us the opportunity to carry out in action what was planned. It should be noted that during the development of face-to-face and virtual activities, they have not strengthened resilience, given the different contexts that we have gone through and are going through. Finally, the experiences of life, volunteering and work of my team has allowed us to get closer to those goals we want to achieve for the benefit of our community and the environment (natural resources) that surrounds us, strengthening us as people to continue with those obstacles.

We are and live constantly with the target population for our project solution, listen to testimonials from primary sources and rigorously research their abilities and needs. Also, we have already presented the project to the children and adolescents of our community through a virtual meeting in which we explain in detail the problem and solution, how they can make the change and contribute positively to society and help to rescue the environment. The population we are going to serve approved the idea and are willing to participate in it. 

Nuestra solución se distingue por trabajar voluntariamente con niños y adolescentes para generar ingresos mientras ayudamos a reducir el consumismo, hacer sostenible más la industria de la moda y cuidar el medio ambiente. Es de jóvenes para jóvenes. A través de actividades sencillas como la recolección de ropa usada, pueden mejorar su calidad de vida y contribuir al mejoramiento de la sociedad.

Nuestros objetivos de impacto para el próximo año son mejorar la calidad de vida de al menos 100 niños, niñas y adolescentes de nuestra comunidad, ofreciéndoles una forma fácil y segura de generar ingresos. Lo lograremos abriendo convocatorias de propuestas y comunicando el proyecto tanto como sea posible a través de las redes sociales y anuncios en toda nuestra comunidad. Otro de los objetivos es recoger al menos 2000 kilogramos de ropa usada que se utilizará para la creación de ropa nueva, evitando el desperdicio y la posterior contaminación ambiental. Otro objetivo es disminuir el nivel de consumismo presente en nuestra comunidad, esto a través de charlas y pruebas de concientización demostradas a través de la efectividad del proyecto. Asimismo, nuestro objetivo es formar alianzas con al menos 5 empresas para la sostenibilidad y garantizar la eficiencia de nuestro proyecto, 

Daremos una tarjeta a cada usuario, cada tarjeta contendrá un código QR único, que al ser escaneado por los miembros de ROPABLEXI, el código nos permitirá ver la información que contiene, siendo dirigido al perfil de cada usuario que se encuentra dentro una página web, donde de acuerdo al peso de las prendas depositadas, se aplicará a tu cuenta una suma de dinero. Cuando el niño, niña o adolescente necesite retirar el dinero de su cuenta, deberá acudir al establecimiento y se le entregará la cantidad de dinero requerida de acuerdo a sus fondos, requiriendo que el usuario haya aportado al menos 1 kilo de prendas, para promover el ahorro económico y formar a esta generación con una alta conciencia medioambiental.

Mínimo 100 niños y adolescentes en nuestra comunidad. El proyecto les afectará directamente, ya que son la clave para que funcione y el público objetivo. 

Además del financiamiento, otro gran obstáculo que tenemos es el no reconocimiento de las autoridades de nuestra comunidad, ya que como jóvenes adolescentes las autoridades pueden no tomarnos en serio y no apoyarnos con el proyecto :c

Ya hemos investigado y considerado algunas organizaciones, pero aún no hemos solicitado la alianza ya que necesitamos formalizar y ser reconocidos. 

Our main beneficiaries are the children and adolescents of our community, we offer them employability and an easy, accessible and safe way to generate income, this through a call and dispersion of information about the project to capture their attention, thus avoiding that this population is exposed to danger at the time of generating income through other means. We offer them this opportunity as a hobby that they can use to improve their economy and quality of life. We need them because they are an enthusiastic population involved in improving society and the world, they want to be agents of change. We will also offer the collected clothes to companies that are in charge of manufacturing clothes, since it would reduce their production costs and consequently we would avoid the unnecessary disposal of tons of clothes that pollute the environment. 

We will finance the project through partnerships with large textile companies by collecting and selling the clothes to them. We will also research and look for programs that are interested in investing in the project to ensure the sustainability of the project.