Episode 3: Circular model for second-hand clothing with Omar Itani

In this episode, The Earth Prize team spoke to Omar Itani, a young social entrepreneur from Beirut, Lebanon. In 2017, and while still a student, Omar co-founded a non-profit called FabricAID with two partners. Their goal is to create a socially and environmentally conscious value-chain for the apparel industry in Lebanon. Among other aspects, FabricAID provides second-hand clothing to marginalized communities at extremely affordable prices.

He is a UNEP champion of the Earth Awardee and the winner of numerous competitions including the Global Social Venture Competition in 2018. In his conversation with Komal Zaidi, he spoke about how he found out that Lebanon, a country where about 3 million people cannot afford first-hand clothes, did not have a proper system for collecting and redistributing used clothes. FabricAID has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing social enterprises in the MENA region and it has expanded its work to Jordan and Egypt as well.