in their own words

'soleRebels began in 2004 as an idea: to bring jobs to our community, Zenabwork , a small village in addis ababa , ethiopia, a place where there literally were none .

having grown up watching our family and neighbors struggling, we decided to create the “better life” we were all waiting for by harnessing our community’s incredible artisan skills and channeling them into a sustainable, global, fair trade footwear business. We have done that and more and we are proud to say that the soleRebels brand is being enjoyed by people in over 10 countries around the world.

we selected shoes because we saw that footwear was an excellent platform to begin to share many of the indigenous eco-sensible craft heritages and artisan talents that we have here in Ethiopia with the world ! It also meant that based on the approach we were taking to footwear creation – that being hand crafted and eco-sensible - that we could source and make almost ALL our materials locally thereby creating an export product from 100% local inputs.

and this allowed us to riff , recreate and re-imagine the traditional “selate” and “barabasso” shoes , a recycled car tire soled shoe that has existed in Ethiopia for a LONG time ( in fact it was THE footwear from back in the early 20th century when the ORIGINAL “soleRebels” fought off the invading forces trying to keep Ethiopia as the only African nation to never be colonized! )
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we took this wonderful indigenous age-old recycling tradition and fused it with fantastic Ethiopian artisan crafts and excellent modern design sensibilities and turned it into footwear that has universal flavor + appeal that is now a market beating export brand being enjoyed by people around the globe!!!!'

Check out their cool website for much more info

green by heritage

'I think the idea of a “green business” is a bit of a fad-dish label that doesn’t express the value of who and what we are. a better way of understanding who we are and why we do what we do is this :

soleRebels is as an innovative and ethical company committed to creating world class footwear and apparel products , great community based jobs while utilizing the immense , diverse , sustainable and eco-sensible materials and cultural arts of Ethiopia that are by their very nature “GREEN” and have always been.

We use the terms like “historically eco-sensible” and “green by heritage” to describe this phenomenon. We do so because we want to express the KEY fact that we are embracing these deeply sustainable and TRADITIONALLY ZERO CARBON methods of production NOTbecause it’s the IN THING , or because we held a focus group or because some marketing genius named Bernie told us to be “GREEN” . We embrace these production methodologies , materials , ideas and ethos’ because they are integral parts of ethiopia’s cultural fabric , a tradition which we grew up within and feel passionately about preserving . and best of all these methods and materials have stood the test of time and are by their essence sustainable and low impact.

So In addition to recycled car tire soles all our styles incorporate as much recycled + sustainable materials as possible with ingredients like hand spun+hand loomed organic cotton fabrics and a pallete of unique natural fibers including Abyssinian HEMP and PURE Abyssinian KOBA , pure abyssinian jutes and Abyssinian PURE leathers . all our shoes are handcrafted + Our packaging is made from recycled shipping cartons and pairs are shipped in re-useable hand loomed cotton bags. with our repurposing of production waste materials into production inputs , we come very close to our over riding goal of a near ZERO waste effect from production .'

on Fair Trade

'We believe that soleRebels’ message resonates with people today more than ever as consumers look for more compelling reasons to buy products and embrace brands . As the worlds 1st WFTO FAIR TRADE footwear company , we believe soleRebels offers something unique and compelling both in terms of products and the ethos of soleRebels.

while we’ve ALWAYS practiced Fair Trade from DAY 1 of the company’s birth , the WFTO registration lets consumers know IN A verifiable manner that the entire company behind the product is fair trade committed – wages, working condition , environment. Everything. while many companies claim to be fair trade firms they have not gone through the rigorous auditing to become WFTO members, the most transparent , rigorous and provable method to truly prove their fair trade credentials to all !'

accolades

' I’m proud to say that we’ve managed to get some great accolades along the way . like in August 2009 when Hilary Clinton hailed us in the recent 8th African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum held August 5th in Kenya mentioning our status as Ethiopia’s pioneering and to date ONLY footwear exporter to break into the US market ! And then we were chosen as africas #1 COOLEST FAIR TRADE BRAND by DISCOVERY CHANNEL presenter Summer Rayne Oakes on the HUFFINGTON POST.

while leading eco fashion web magazine greenMUZE called us the most fabulous eco shoemaker on the planet!!!

we were honored that SoleRebels was recently dubbed ,' Ethiopian answer to 'Nike' an idea that raced around the world from the U.K. to China to Japan and on to Malaysia!!!

And there's heaps more media attention here including a link to Bethlehem speaking at the 2010 CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE. Bethlehem's invitation from President Clinton marked the 1st time an African entrepreneur was invited to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative as speaker + panelist .'

Who says you can’t be eco AND fair and COOL ??