The OR Foundation

COMMUNITY

She/Her | Co-Founder & Director

Liz is an educator, designer and strategist. Working within the industry as a designer and stylist, Liz witnessed the toxicity of fashion’s disposable culture firsthand and has since been dedicated to transforming the industry. She holds a Masters in Education from Harvard University. She has taught as both full-time faculty and as a guest lecturer in K-12 classrooms and in universities. Her upcycled garments have appeared in international magazines, film and TV. And her work as a researcher and advocate for a Justice-Led Circular Economy has been published widely.

She/Her | Programs Manager

Chloe is a designer, researcher and humanitarian. She studied fashion design at Ghana’s Radford University. She has seen the negative impact of fast fashion and wants to do something about it. She does this by starting where she is, holding herself accountable in the part she plays in a vicious and wasteful cycle, and calling on others creators to do the same. Chloe is a Gucci Design Fellow Finalist and an active member of the Board of Fashion Ghana.

He/Him | Co-Founder & Producer

Branson is an educator, farmer, urban planner and musician. He has led small and large-scale organic farming operations and supply chains, open-source coding initiatives, a fair trade fashion cooperative, cross-border educational collaborations, documentary projects and music videos. He studied Globalization of Public Health and Societies at NYU Gallatin, where he was a Reynolds Scholar for Social Entrepreneurship. He also holds a Masters of Community Planning degree from the University of Cincinnati.

He/Him | Community Design Lab Manager

Sammy is a trained fashion designer based in Accra who has been repurposing secondhand pieces for over a decade. Within his work he is keen on making a socio-political statement, exploring issues of neo-colonialism, sexuality and gender fluidity. He is a Gucci Design Fellowship Finalist. Prior to joining our team Sammy led a research project on secondhand clothing consumer behavior in Accra. Sammy has spoken about the impact of the secondhand clothing trade in Accra across an array of media.

He/Him | Senior Programs Assistant & Educator

Joshua is from Labadi, Accra. He is a photographer, moviemaker, skateboarder and coach who founded Skate Nation Ghana. He is a founding team member, working with The OR Foundation since 2009 to lead classes and support research through his technical expertise and people-oriented approach. As a skateboarder and community builder, he has been featured in numerous international magazines and documentaries.

He/Him | Programs Assistant

Al is a designer and photographer from the Northern Region of Ghana, living in Accra. He has worked as a retailer and upcycler in Kantamanto and as a community story teller in the Old Fadama area of Accra, bringing new perspectives and truths to the fore.

She/Her | International Outreach & Development Coordinator

Linda is a creative, artistic and operational think-tank with a background in fashion design and textiles from Artez in Arnhem. As a 'Material Teller' she explores how 'things' mediate and travel between conceptual worlds in diverse cultural, geographic and temporal contexts, and how they embody this mediation and movement in their form. Over the past 10 years she worked in Asia and Africa as a researcher and teacher for several fashion brands and art academies focusing on transforming the role of fashion in relation to specific social issues.

He/Him | Material R&D Coordinator

Paul is a designer and researcher who aims to translate the often abstracted values of sustainability into tangible systems and objects that help people build deeper, experiential understandings of issues related to consumerism. Since graduating from the University of Cincinnati with a B.S. in Industrial Design, he has worked on a variety of educational material transformation projects in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. Prior to joining our team he worked with Precious Plastic in the Netherlands.

She/Her | Programs Assistant

Nirvana grew up in Accra, leaving in 2014 to pursue a Psychology degree at the University of Sussex, where she developed practice working alongside vulnerable children and young adults in mental health settings. She aims to contribute toward restoring justice for the Ghanaian people most impacted by the toxic effects of the global north’s dumping of fashion waste on Ghana. Outside of her work for the OR Foundation, she helps run a retail outlet for handmade African crafts made by local craftspeople with the aim of dismantling outdated colonialist perceptions of African art and products.

She/Her | Programs Assistant

Nabia is an entrepreneur, researcher and translator. She studied development education and engaged in participatory research along developmental projects with rural communities in Northern Ghana. Nabia understands the push and pull factors that impact kayayei migration and labor conditions. She is passionate about having a positive impact on society with a current focus on transforming the lives of girls and women working as kayayei.

She/Her | Research Fellow

Draven Peña is a designer and writer from Portland, OR. Her work bridges her love of research, design strategy, and trend forecasting to create meaningful projects based in activism and the highlighting of Black culture. She most recently co-wrote and published her first report, “The Dream Will Never Pay Off: How Unpaid Internships uphold exploitation and hinder financial sustainability within the Fashion Industry” with the help of The OR Foundation.