ABLE

ABLE: Bought BY Women FOR Women 

A lifestyle brand focused on ending generational poverty, ABLE works with women in the communities they wish to impact, locally and globally, creating jobs and ending charity dependency. Barrett Ward founded the company after living in Ethiopia and witnessing firsthand how extreme poverty forced generations of young women to resort to prostitution as a means of support and survival. His goal was to provide these women with a safe and healthy alternative to earn a living, empowering them to end the cycle of poverty that kept them trapped.

Why women? ABLE chooses to work with women because they understand that when women thrive, so do the economies around them. In fact, according to UNICEF, women reinvest 80% of their income into their families and communities, whereas men reinvest only 30-40%. The fashion industry is the third-largest in the world with over 60 million people, over 75% of whom are women. 

Over the years, ABLE grew from offering a single collection of handwoven scarves to a much wider scale that includes leather goods, jewelry, denim, and footwear produced in Ethiopia, Mexico, Peru, and even Nashville, TN at their headquarters. More recently, they’ve implemented a system they call accountABLE, a “radical and disruptive reporting system” that provides “unparalleled transparency” into the overall impact of their brand mission.