FACE MASK INITIATIVE

Got you covered initiative

Since day one Tembo's mission has been to empower women. But as we faced the COVID-19 crisis, Tembo temporarily shifted its production from reusable tote bags to fabric face masks. We knew our already established partnership with the Artisan Sewing Cooperative was set up perfectly to answer the call for help from our heroes working on the front lines and made that happen through a buy one donate one business model.

Within 3 months Tembo had donated over 2300 masks! Our masks have gone to:

Project Renewal, Lenox Hill Hospital, The New Jewish Home, Visiting Nurse Services of NY, New York Cares, Invisible Hands, Word of Life International/Bronx, Doctors Without Borders NYC, Safe Horizons/Bronx & Queens Masks For Midwives NYC, and more!

Thanks to you, Tembo masks are protecting our brave heroes working in food pantries, soup kitchens, nursing homes and hospitals, delivering healthcare and food, and protecting expectant mothers, the elderly and the homeless.

Further, the Artisan Sewing Cooperative in Queens, NYC, provides immigrant women an opportunity to make a living in their own homes, empowering them on their way to economic independence. As many families are suffering from unemployment and economic hardships during these times, your purchase allows our expert seamstresses to provide for their families, while at the same time enhancing safety of our first responders.

A global pandemic deserves a global response

As COVID-19 made its way around the world, it ravaged the most vulnerable communities. Joining forces with the international not-for-profit, Unite The World With Africa Foundation we created a 2020 Mother’s Day “Women of the World Unite” promotion. For each Tembo mask sold here in America with coupon code UNITE, Tembo made a donation to Unite to engage its “Brave Widows” sewing cooperative in Tanzania to make face masks for donation to their local hospitals and people living with HIV/AIDS. Unite engaged their community through emails and social media and within a few short weeks, Tembo donated enough for the Brave Widows to make 500 masks for their local community.

Shifting our support to where it’s needed

Among all of the horrors that COVID-19 has wrought, domestic violence is a growing scourge that lurks in the shadows. Indeed, a stark uptick in reports of domestic violence and abuse has recently received national (and even global) attention. New estimates from the United Nations Population Fund suggest that three months of quarantine has resulted in a 20 percent rise in domestic violence throughout the world.

That is why as the mask shortage has waned, we have shifted our giving power, donating 5% of our proceeds to Sanctuary for Families, New York’s leading provider of services for survivors of gender violence. Many of their clients are women of color who live at the nexus of abuse, institutional racism and the health disparities and risks caused by COVID-19.

When life without masks returns, we hope you will continue to support our mission of empowering women and combating climate change. At Tembo, we truly believe change happens when we all work together.

Be well and stay safe!