bold idea
Reduce plastic pollution in highly polluted areas in Uganda by turning plastic waste into affordable sewing thread for textile traders.
organization overview
Helton Traders is a Uganda-based social enterprise that turns discarded plastic bottles into affordable, high-quality polyester sewing thread. Working with women and youth waste collectors, Helton collects and sorts bottles from highly polluted areas, processes them into thread, and supplies wholesale textile traders who resell to designers, schools, and tailors. By paying above-market prices for plastic to collectors and producing locally, Helton creates fair-pay, inclusive green jobs, reduces urban plastic pollution, and strengthens a more reliable, lower-cost textile supply chain.
Personal Bio
Hellen Munyasa is the founder and managing director of Helton Traders. Before founding Helton, she led a textile trading business importing tailoring materials, where she experienced how costly, slow imports create shortages for traders, designers, and schools. She also worked as a textile design trainer at GEMS Cambridge International School in Kampala, Uganda, and holds a BA in industrial and fine arts from Makerere University. Under her leadership, Helton has created hundreds of green jobs and recycled thousands of tons of plastic waste. Her work has been recognized through the Mandela Washington Fellowship, Commonwealth Startup Fellowship, the iF Design Social Impact Prize, Youth Connekt Africa, and entrepreneurship programs such as the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, UNDP Youth for Business Innovation Challenge, YECO, Total Startupper and Climate Launchpad.
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Organization Structure ?
An organization can be structured as a nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid (a structure that incorporates both nonprofit and for-profit elements).
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