We started Panublix out of our personal pain-points, we are a team of designers, innovators, marketer, scientists and engineers, who all have a passion for our Philippine textiles and our diverse culture.
Even before the COVID19 pandemic, disruptions caused by rapid innovations & climate crisis threatened the exclusion of many sectors in society. For the fashion & design industry, this includes the makers of things we buy!
We had our sights set on connecting with weavers in our home base of Iloilo, Philippines - which was once known as the country's textile capital. But when lockdowns were declared in March 2020, our plans were put on hold.
The income of our partner weavers & garment-makers decreased by 90% in the 2nd quarter of 2020 due to the cancelled conventions, graduations and tourism activity which were the main revenue sources.
All the more were we motivated to make Panublix work in order to prevent the economic impact of the pandemic from plunging our partners in hunger, poverty & instability. This is what we did.
To answer the call for local PPEs for front liners, we aggregated garment-makers in a digital system so donors can easily procure PPEs when supply chains were disrupted. We were able to produce over Php 200,000 of PPE suits which became a crucial income source for our garment makers.
When the demand for cloth face masks increased, our weavers pivoted to sewing face masks using the hablon weaves thereby helping in liquidating their stock and providing cashflow for their families. We also setup an e-commerce site that can gave them direct access to a global market.
Since launching the site in August 2020, we've received over Php120,000 worth of orders in face masks, hablon weaves & scarves.
69.2% of sales went directly to partner communities and the rest were invested back into the social enterprise development efforts. From March 2020 to February 2021, Panublix generated a total sales of ₱359,257.20
To date we have onboarded 14 community enterprises on the Panublix platform, 13 in Western Visayas (Aklan and Iloilo) and 1 from Cordillera Administrative Region (Abra).
14 community enterprises consists of 2 Indigenous Community Enterprises, 10 Handloom Weaving Enterprises, and 2 Garment-making associations.
We have created and sustained 41 jobs from community members working on direct orders and our internal team. At least 36 weavers and garment makers and 5 jobs in our growing Panublix team.
A community and team comprised of 85% women.
In less than 12 months we have connected our community partners to markets in over 30 countries through digital adoption & e-commerce.
None of this would have been possible without our tapestry of partners from public & private sectors to facilitate digital adoption among our weavers & garment makers.
***
We know this is still a small drop in the bucket. We hope to be able to connect more weavers & textile makers especially in Southeast Asia, to the trillion dollar fashion & design market, through digital supply chain & commerce.
We invite you to join the mission. Let's build the gateway for a renaissance of traceable, transparent & impactful fashion. Interested to connect, learn more or even invest in this mission?
Contact us at panublix@gmail.com
