Paramo Outdoor Clothing (Catherine Whitehead)

Rotarian Barry Pick introduced the guest speaker on 15^thMarch. Catherine Whitehead of Paramo Outdoor Clothing spoke about the strict manufacturing principles applied by the company in the production of their products. Based in Wadhurst, East Sussex and sister company to Nikwax, also based in Wadhurst, the company is an environmental and ethically responsible business. Paramo uses renewable energy, achieves 80%+, and increasing, recycling of waste and has eliminated the use of perfluorinated compounds (PFC’s). PFC’s are water and oil-repelling compounds which pollute the environment and can be dangerous to humans and animals and are generally used in the manufacture of all outdoor clothing.

The fabric for Paramo clothing is manufactured in Columbia. Nik Brown, the company founder and still MD, toured South America to find a suitable factory to manufacture the fabric to his strict specifications. Nik “stumbled” across a workshop in Bogota, the Miquelina Foundation, which was run by a nun who had started the workshop with a few second hand sewing machines to offer practical help for vulnerable women and girls and deter them from a life of prostitution and drugs. Since 1992 Paramo has been in partnership with the Miquelina Foundation   Profits are ploughed back into the Foundation and now it employs 200 staff, trains 550 workers a year, runs a kindergarten for 200 children and has started a housing cooperative for the workers who able to start buying their own accommodation. Some 131 houses have been built so far and there is a canteen on site which feeds 300 local school children breakfast daily. The Foundation has now been certified as a World Fair Trade Organisation, the first manufacturer of outdoor clothing to achieve the status. The work of the Foundation has now been extended as a satellite project in Pereira City some 200 kilometres west of Bogota. The whole project empowers exploited women and girls to take their future into their own hands in a country where there has been so much displacement

Rotarian Iain Robinson gave the vote of thanks.