Australian Starts US Based Yoga Mat Bag Company, Helps Guatemala Women
written on Friday, 4 Nov 2011 by Bryan Russell
You are an Australian, ex-accountant/trained yoga teacher, launching a social enterprise founded on yoga principals. What inspired you to make this drastic life change?
The idea for I AM. was born on a Yoga teacher training course in Guatemala.
http://kck.st/qvsk7z
Two years
earlier, yoga found me. I was introduced to what I now understand as meditation
by accident while training for a long distance triathlon. During intensive
training sessions I developed the habit of focusing my attention on the breath,
it turned into a moving meditation.
Through
this process I felt myself becoming more connected to the present moment, it
was like night and day.
The
experience was life changing, it completely altered my perspective on life,
success and happiness. This was my path into Yoga and shortly after I
left my career in accounting and finance to go travelling the world. I
seriously had no idea where I was going or what I was going
to do, I just packed my backpack, said my goodbyes, and left. The journey led me through India, Europe and to a Yoga teacher-training course in Guatemala. Yoga gave me the gift of awareness and with it the desire to give back.
Learning of my background, one of the instructors at the training course gave me a book by Muhammad Yunus – “Creating a world without poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism”. The concepts in the book fascinated me and led to the idea of founding I AM.: A yoga-inspired social enterprise that recognizes interconnectedness and aims to build market based solutions to social problems.
I named
it I AM. after the state of Samadhi or Enlightenment.
What type
of impact can this business model have on small communities around the world?
Our
launch project in the I AM. Artisan model is “Soulwears” – a line of incredibly
innovative and beautiful yoga bags that are made of naturally dyed hand woven
textiles.
The idea
started with a problem: thousands of single Maya mothers living in poverty.
Each have this incredible ability to hand weave textiles using a back-strap
loom, a skill that is passed down from generation to generation – but as it’s
expensive and inefficient, there is no longer a market for it.
Through
this line of yoga bags we hope to create a way out of poverty for hundreds of
Maya artisans living in Guatemala while providing yogis with the best bag on the market.
In
addition to providing employment opportunities in unemployable areas, the I AM.
model is HalfBack – we invest half of all I AM. profits into the communities we
work with. This is built into the fiber and DNA of I AM. and represents a
wholesale change to traditional commercial enterprises.
When
thinking of potential impact - imagine for a second the I AM. model in action –
empowering impoverished women in Guatemala by providing a means for them to support
their families, Half of all profits being invested into infrastructure &
education – now imagine that I AM. is the size of Lululemon.
Imagine
again that it is the size of Coca-Cola.
Think of
the potential impact this could have on a global scale.
That’s
the dream.
Our
consumption on a day-to-day basis is power, the power of choice.
I AM.
aims to channel that power into solving social problems.
This new
way of approaching business is still so unchartered in Australia, what it is
like in the US and do you think it is the way of the future?
I have no
doubt that this is the future.
The
global market place is evolving; the reality is it has to if we are going to
become more sustainable as a species.
It just
makes so much sense. There is a reason for-profit enterprises are the most
powerful in the global market place, they take the best in intellectual
capital, financial capital, technology and innovation and organize it in an
efficient way to produce a focused outcome – usually profit. The idea of
creative capitalism and social enterprises is just changing the target from
profit to impact.
TOMS
shoes is an amazing story of this model in action.
I AM. is
based in the HUB in San Francisco which is a co-working space for social
entrepreneurs trying to do exactly that. It is an incredibly inspiring and
motivating community to be a part of and there are a lot exciting things being
done.
Australia
is not too far behind, a HUB was recently set up in Melbourne and we’re also
seeing companies like Thankyou Water coming to market.
How can
people learn more about and support I AM.?
I AM. is
still just an idea. We launched I AM. on a crowd funding platform in the US
called Kickstarter to raise the funds that we need to make our idea and I AM. a
reality. The campaign ends on November 22nd, so come check it out
and watch our video! http://kck.st/qvsk7z
We need
to raise $45,000 to build a natural dying facility in Guatemala.
Inspired
individuals can support us by pre-purchasing the I AM. yoga bag or an awesome I
AM. t-shirt, designed by our friends at Selfless T.
Also check out our website: www.theIAMidea.com