Pikolinos Maasai Project & Eugenia Silva

A fair trade project for the sustainable development of the Maasai community.

In the Maasai society, women have a fundamental role in contributing to the well-being of community members: they are in charge of building homes, feeding the family and looking after the children.
The different external factors that have conditioned their traditionally nomadic lifestyle have also obliged the Maasai Community to look for new resources to guarantee their survival, preserve their values and their distinct way of life.

Up to now selling handcrafts has been their only source of income used to buy basic commodities which has meant establishing very stable sales channels.

At Pikolinos we are quite aware of this situation and that is why we have set up a sustainable, alternative trade project to guarantee a decent quality of life for the whole community. In collaboration with the NGO Adcam, we decided to get together with the Maasai women, to decorate the ethnic shoe collections with typical hand sewn designs and motifs.

Now for the third year running, the work of more than 1400 women continues to be a colourful sign of the Maasai identity and culture.

Our new commitment means that we can work on an initiative that benefits the whole Maasai community, furthering education and work for a better quality of life, which in turn, helps us to consolidate our brand that stands for naturalness, creativity, humility, consistency and excellence.

Pikolinos sells a product made by Maasai women in Kenya that gives them the chance to earn a decent wage so that they can preserve both their culture and their own life style.

An exceptional ambassador, the top model Eugenia Silva, is kindly helping us out with this project. She travelled to Kenya with Pikolinos to find out about the project at first hand, and she met each and every woman that is involved in it. The photo session organised there with Eugenia looking absolutely fantastic in the midst of the African Savannah will be at the forefront of the international project.

All the profits from the sales of this collection go to development projects; building schools and health centres in the Maasai Mara.

A percentage of the profits made by Pikolinos go to the Juan Perán Pikolinos foundation which has been involved in creating more than 300 national and international humanitarian aid and cooperation projects.

Another world is possible

www.pikolinos.com/maasai
@maasaiproject @proyectomaasai
@pikolinos_shoes
www.facebook.com/Pikolinos.Shoes