BAG2WORK: From boat to bag & from refugee to employee

Two Dutch designers, Didi Aaslund and Floor Nagler, have worked with refugees to create BAG2WORK rucksack from discarded boats and life vests. The team, working under the name No Mad Makers started a campaign on Kickstarter. They try to crowdfund the production but unfortunately it failed. They sold the last pieces of the bags on their websites.

Their famous project, BAG2WORK, is not only a design piece, is a project centered around the current refugee crisis taking place in European countries. They came up with the idea after visiting the Greek island of Lesbos. There, they  found beaches strewn with boats and vests left behind by refugees. Working together with refugees, the two girls set up a workshop on the island assembling bags from the discarded rubber.

As the refugees refugees have to carry all their belongings with them, the bag is suitable for their needs. It is designed to offer the most possible space using the minimum amount of material. The 21-litre BAG2WORK bags are made from one square metre of boat rubber and four life-vest straps, which cross over the rucksack to hold it closed.

To be able to work swiftly with the sturdy boat material, they decided to use rivet guns. Riveting is a simple technique that we may know from how many jeans pockets are assembled.

“It proved to be a very feasible and inclusive approach for working in the camps. It allows anyone to make a bag within one hour.”

 

Their vision

Instead of giving them money, or giving them other stuff, they wanted to give them their independence back. So they could, by teaching them, make stuff for themselves.

“Like most humans on this planet we believe in the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. Being autonomous makers ourselves, it breaks our heart to see how refugees are consistently treated as needy victims and not as the inventive humans they can be.” They said.

They documented the work they did on Lesvos, and it became a huge hit on the internet. More and more people wanted to buy the bags, and they couldn’t meet the demand. Their focus was on the workshops, not a web shop for the bags.

We hope this project can find an happy ending as this is both an amazing humanitarian work providing work to as many refugees as possible and a useful recycling work . Stay tuned on their website.

Photo credits by No Mad Makers