“AFLIMBA, an eco-friendly creative space to nurture talents of young girls who dropped out of school and single mothers in rural communities. Their shared aspiration? To make a decent living through sewing. Our main goal is to enhance the livelihoods of these rural artisans by offering sustainable and dignified employment opportunities and at the same time bring to life the finest-handcrafted bags, we call them ‘LIMBAGS'”
In 2018, Plante Josue embarked on a mission to empower rural artisans starting from Rwanda. Growing up in the suburbs of Kigali, and his mother being a tailor who earned pennies from her perfect craft, he witnessed their immense talent but also recognized the barriers firsthand. These artisans, tucked away in remote communities, lacked access to markets beyond their neighborhoods. Even if they could reach broader audiences, they still grappled with limited information about trends and insufficient funds to fuel their creative ideas. Driven by a desire to rewrite his hometown narrative, AFLIMBA was born.
In 2022: Our team, driven by a commitment to address critical issues in Rwandan society, pushed the boundaries even further. We set our sights on recycling harmful textile waste.
At the core of human needs lie the essentials: food, produced from soil, water, and air. These same elements sustain our lives. However, among the top pollutants affecting these vital components, textile waste stands out. Shockingly, approximately 92 million tonnes of textile waste end up in landfills each year—equivalent to a garbage truck being dumped every second. And yet, only 1% of this waste is recycled.
Our mission became clear: take action. In our research, we discovered that while jeans are a staple in nearly every wardrobe worldwide, they are also one of the least eco-friendly fabrics. Consider this: China’s Xintang province alone churns out around 300 million pairs of jeans annually. That’s how much humanity adores denim.
Denim’s enduring popularity shows no signs of waning. At AFLIMBA, we’ve positioned ourselves at the final stage of the denim lifecycle. Our mission? To collect discarded jeans and ingeniously repurpose them as valuable resources. The result: meticulously handcrafted bags aptly named “KINTSUGI LIMBAGS.” These bags showcase a diverse array of designs and functionalities, breathing new life into denim waste.
We offer a structured six-month sewing training program with the explicit aim of empowering young girls who have discontinued their education and single or teenage mothers residing in rural communities. Following the completion of the program, graduates are provided with opportunities for employment within our production team. Those who do not join our team are furnished with official certification and guided assistance, facilitating their integration into alternative manufacturing environments or the establishment of independent ventures within the sewing industry.
Our team fully embodies these three core values.
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They are done by a team of people”
~Steve Jobs
Customer Service Manager
Production Manager Assistant
Managing Director
B2B Sales Associate
Production Manager
Sewing Training Program Facilitator
Digital Marketing Manager
