Up until a few days ago the Instagram page of the Only The Brave (OTB) Foundation, a not-for-profit organization launched in 2008 by Renzo Rosso (president of the eponymous fashion group that owns Diesel, Maison Margiela, Marni, Jil Sander and Viktor & Rolf), still focused on fashion-related social issues, such as sustainability.
Since the Taliban entered Kabul, though, the foundation has re-shifted its attention to Afghanistan and Afghan women. Yet this focus is not just a way to show solidarity from a distance, as OTB has actually been also active and has recently helpd flying out of Afghanistan the local women it has been supporting.
Since 2019 the foundation supported a project called Pink Shuttle launched by Nove Onlus that tried to help women becoming more independent in Afghanistan by guaranteeing them free mobility and overcoming limits imposed by a restrictive and conservative society. The project offered indeed Afghan women public transportation with shuttles driven exclusively by female drivers in the streets of Kabul.
Drivers were selected, trained and authorized by their families and the senior citizens' council to become part of the project. Passengers were also selected through agreements with the organizations where they worked or studied to define transfer times and routes; in this way women could reach the places where they worked and studied independently in a country where women engaged in non-traditional activities are targeted.
Nove Onlus was hoping to turn the Pink Shuttle into a proper commercial service managed by local women, but the rapid Taliban takeover will now bring the project – that was also financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development – to a stop.
Yet, knowing that the women Nove Onlus trained may have been in danger and may have become the target of the Taliban for having dared to drive, the charity with the support of the OTB Foundation flew them and their children over to Italy. In the past few weeks Nove Onlus had to destroy all the documents that regarded the women who collaborated with them; the charity also shut down the Pink Shuttle service website and brought to an end a series of social projects they were doing in Afghanistan, but they do hope they will be able to keep on building a sports venue for disabled people in Herat. For the time being, the Pink Shuttle mini buses will be turned into emergency vehicles, a project already supported by OTB.
Ths Pink Shuttle is not the only project OTB supported in Afghanistan: in collaboration with CIAI Onlus, the foundation also helped girls who, refusing combined marriages or were the victims of physical violence, were accused of moral crimes and ended up in the Kabul and Herat Youth Rehabilitation Centers.
Since it was created in 2008, the OTB Foundation has supported a variety of international projects focused on social development. The activities are mainly developed by Renzo Rosso's wife Arianna Alessi, vice president of the OTB Foundation, who has so far taken an active approach to emergencies.
Last year, the foundation mainly concentrated on providing practical help during the Coronavirus pandemic, donating 1 million pieces of PPE (including surgical masks, filter masks, scrubs, shoe covers and hand-sanitizing gels that they managed to get through the OTB network of suppliers across the globe) to 100 Italian hospitals, retirement homes and other organisations.
It also distributed air cleaners, helmets for breathing assistance, full face masks and iPads to help patients to remain connected with their families, and supported the conversion of a section of a Milan-based hospital into a Covid-19 ward. When vaccines were rolled-out OTB also contributed to set up a vaccination hub in Bassano Del Grappa for the local population.
Besides, all Italian OTB executives voluntarily donated a minimum of five of their contractual paid leave days collecting a sum exceeding 500,000 euros to distribute among lower-income employees of the group inactive and in need because of COVID-19, while Rosso waived 50 percent of his salary as president of the fashion group.
OTB is not the only foundation linked with a fashion group working on social projects: brands and fashion houses have realised that consumers nowadays do not want to buy just a product, but they also want to learn more about the values of the brands they are investing in. Supporting a social project or a specific cause is indeed an asset for a brand or a fashion house as it shows consumers where they stand.
And while maybe most brands or fashion houses may not be ready yet for what the Italian king of cashmere Brunello Cucinelli calls "Humanistic Capitalism", quite a few of them are realising they can't just sell luxury products without caring about what happens around them, but they should also reinvest their profits back into social projects that can improve people's lives in the local community where they are based or in developing countries.
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