ReMode Make ReDress was a major two year project funded by the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund.
The project set out to redress the balance of influence – and on a very practical level, to reduce textile waste in our communities. Our aim was to empower young people and the wider community in Lochwinnoch and Paisley to take an active role in combating the environmental impact of the fashion and textile industries, through learning mend and adapt skills, taking part in volunteering, our swishes, film screenings and other sociable gatherings and events.
We had plans in place for a busy two year programme of workshops, events and outreach activities. Little did we know what the two years ahead had in store. Two changes of premises and a worldwide pandemic were certainly not eventualities we had considered. But we’re really proud of how we adapted and what we achieved over the course of the programme.
This film by Kevin Cameron gives an insight into the Make ReDress project.
The headlines
- In year 1 – before COVID – we directly engaged with 1142 people through our programme of workshops, courses, events, talks and pop ups.
- We successfully adapted to the lockdown conditions – reshaping our programme by devising on-line workshops, presentations, film screenings and ‘In conversation’ events, synchronous activities and by using the postal system. 365 people engaged directly with our online and remote workshop and events.
- In the digital world we added blogs, interviews, a digital zine, “how to” films and an online shop to our website. Since its launch in November 2019 our website has had 10,500 visitors
- In year 1 we moved our Paisley shop and workshop space twice – each time building a new audience and taking new participants with us as we moved on to establish our Paisley base for ReMode.
- We opened our new shop on Paisley High Street in November 2019 – taking part in and building a wider celebration of the cultural backstory of our communities in Renfrewshire, raising climate literacy levels as well as agency to create change. We have welcomed 2198 visitors to our high street shop since it opened.
- We increased our volunteer involvement including the accruing of new board members. We now have a team of 49 active volunteers who have given over 1000 hours of their time to the project over the past two years.
- We welcomed two new members of staff – doubling team ReMode to a happy crew of 4.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part in the project, and particularly to our fabulous volunteer team and all our customers
