On November 14, 2014 a group from CAWEE and CIDA (Ms. Anouk St-Arnaud, Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development Canada accompanies by the team form the Ethio-Canada development Cooperation) visited the Sole Rebels Workshop located around the Betel area in the Kolfe-Keranio sub-city.

The visit showcased the production process for the shoes from preparation of raw materials to the final end-product delivered to customers.

Sole Rebels was established in 2004 as a startup business and in the last 10 years, the company has grown to 30 outlets around the world. Sole Rebels opened its’ flagship store in Addis Ababa 5 years ago and now has stores in Taiwan, Spain and USA as well as a new store to come in Greece in the following year.

The materials used for the production of the merchandises are all locally sourced and everything is hand-made in the workshop. Materials range from recycled tires, army used clothes, leather as well as the traditional Ethiopian hand-woven fabric.

Sole Rebels is one of the partner companies of the project of the Office of the First Lady of Ethiopia ‘Connecting 1,500 Women & Young Girls to the Export Market’, where CAWEE is the lead project implementing organization.

In partnering with this project, Sole Rebels is currently working with the first round of the trainees at Shiromeda, where the company has given order of 1,500 meters of hand woven fabric, per month, to those trained in hand weaving.

In future collaboration with the project, Sole Rebels will be partnering with those women who will be trained in dying, so that the company gets dyed fabrics directly, instead of it doing the dying task, as this will give the opportunity to the company to fully concentrate in its productions.

Sole Rebels is also expanding its product lines with its new lines of leather apparel that it has started this year.