DONATIONS through January 5th WILL BE MATCHED!
Our beloved Kantamanto has burned.
On January 1st, 2025, Kantamanto Secondhand Clothing Market in Accra, Ghana, the largest secondhand market in the world, responsible for recirculating millions of items from around the globe every week, caught on fire and burnt to the ground. Thousands of businesses have been destroyed. Millions of dollars of supplies and tools are lost. Daily livelihoods gone.
This is the biggest fire we have witnessed in our 15 years of working within and in service to Kantamanto. We are all devastated.
As a keystone organization working within and in service to Kantamanto Market, The Or Foundation is committing an initial $1,000,000 of emergency relief funding to be allocated in collaboration with impacted community members.
More is and will be needed! We created this page so you can support the community to rebuild and sustain relief throughout this crisis which has impacted over 10,000 people. Join us in our determination to meet the basic needs of community members and to maintain the culture of reuse and community that Kantamanto has pioneered over decades.
This effort takes shape as part of our broader Secondhand Solidarity Fund, which since 2020 has distributed over USD 500,000 in direct grants to over 1,500 members of the Kantamanto Market community. Disbursement through SSF includes emergency food supplies to women working as kayayei during COVID-19 lockdowns and direct financial relief to over 1,000 people working as secondhand clothing retailers and upcyclers after smaller market fires in 2020 and 2022. This is in addition to our ongoing, monthly, disbursements to community members in service of alleviating debt, supporting healthcare costs and funding business and infrastructural improvements such as a new sewing machine or new roofing for a section of the market.
While this is not something we celebrate as it is an indication that Kantamanto is struggling, we now have over three years of experience coordinating crisis relief response. Each year, our ability to coordinate these efforts in lockstep with community leadership strengthens, ensuring that we can act faster and more thoughtfully in response to the priorities as expressed by community members.
This work also builds on our community organizing efforts across the market to organizing waste collection, to spearhead recycling initiatives, to foster alternative economic pathways for young women headcarrying secondhand clothing, to celebrate Kantamanto's rich culture of upcycling through the Obroni Wawu October festival series and our Community Business Incubation program, and to lead delegation trips for Kantamanto community members to advocate for Globally Accountable Extended Producer Responsibility policies in the US and Europe and to call on brands to publish their production volumes.
Our holistic operations as an organization are based on the understanding that manifesting an alternative is the best resistance to the dehumanizing and destructive impacts of fast fashion. Even as Kantamanto Market sits at the end of fast fashion's linear economy, the market is home to a creative spirit and determination that represents the best alternative we know of. We are in awe of Kantamanto Market as community members work around the clock to rise from the ashes.
What are we doing now? Immediately (this is being written within 24 hours of the fire), we have attended several meetings with community leaders, organized trucks at their request to help haul debris as part of the community cleanup effort, and we are following up on reported medical cases and injuries as a result of the fire so as to offer immediate assistance with hospital charges and navigating the healthcare system in Accra. We will begin mobilizing funds to rebuild the market and to provide direct financial assistance to impacted community members over the coming days. 100% of funds raised will go directly into the Kantamanto Market community.
Updates will follow on this page and our social media (@theorispresent) as relief efforts develop and an investigation into the fire ensues.
Donations via Mobile Money in Ghana can be accepted via +233(0)559852625.
Please contact giving@theor.org for questions or alternative forms of contributions.
Thank you for your support!