12 Jul ‘21 · by Africa Practice
Mabel Suglo is a 23-year-old entrepreneur from Ghana who is the founder of the Eco-Shoes Project, which is an initiative and company that manufactures shoes and accessories from discarded tyres and recycled materials. Suglo employs disabled people who are often marginalized from society due to discrimination. In an interview, Suglo says that the initiative was inspired by her late grandmother, who suffered discrimination due to her leprosy condition, and various other people in her community who had physical disabilities. She wanted to create employment opportunities for them, as well as create comfortable shoes for her grandmother from durable materials. She then created her first pairs of shoes made from discarded tyres for her grandmother, then partnered with a local school for disabled children and two business partners to get her idea off the ground. The business now employs five artisans, and manufactured over 1000 pairs of shoes in 2014. She was the second runner up of the 2015 Anzisha Prize by the African Leadership Academy in South Africa and the MasterCard Foundation.
