Meet Juliet Namujju, an entrepreneur, fashion designer and AdamStart 2020 winner for her innovative lip-reading face mask designs

Juliet Namujju, 24, is an entrepreneur, fashion designer and AdamStart 2020 winner for her innovative lip-reading face mask designs.

At the age of five, Juliet’s parents suffered a life-changing car accident, which sadly took her mother’s life and left her father severely disabled. His legs had to be amputated and as a result, he lost his job. Speaking fondly of her father, Juliet says: “It was so sad – first he lost his wife, then his legs, then his job. Discrimination against the disabled in our country is a huge problem. My father was seen as a curse and abandoned as a result of the incident he experienced with my mother.”

Sadly, Juliet’s father passed away two years later when she was seven, leaving her orphaned. She was taken in by her grandmother, with whom she lived in remote Uganda and learnt everything she now knows about sewing: “My grandmother is 78 and still works as a tailor – she’s incredible!”

Juliet remembers first developing her passion for both fashion and sustainability when she was eight, using the cut-offs from her grandmother’s material and plastic waste to produce her own toys. She hand-sewed clothes for the dolls she created from old plastic bottles.

“I started to see what others threw away as a resource. The off-cuts were being thrown away or burnt and I couldn’t bear to see this waste and the impact it was having on the environment.”

This passion stayed with Juliet all the way through her teenage years, and after attaining a certificate in fashion and design at the age of 20, she founded Kimuli Fashionability – a sustainable fashion label transforming the waste crisis in Africa into employment opportunities for disabled tailors.

“It’s sad that the youth are left fighting for the rights of people with disabilities, but we want to change this mindset in my country. Disabled people shouldn’t be seen as a curse, and I wanted to offer these individuals the opportunity to work. I saw what happened first-hand with my father losing his job, and I wanted to break this trend for good.”

When the coronavirus outbreak first hit, Juliet knew she could use her skills to help people. She started creating reusable and biodegradable face masks, which she distributed to vulnerable local market vendors to help slow the spread of the disease.

She then stumbled across AdamStart on social media, an international platform set up to provide funding, mentorship and global training to help young entrepreneurs access business mentorship and scale social enterprise ideas. In response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the 2020 iteration of AdamStart required entrepreneurs to help prepare, inform, or protect communities from the impact of the pandemic.

“When I heard about the AdamStart competition, I realised I could upcycle plastic like I did when I was younger and make masks for individuals who are hard of hearing and rely on lip-reading. The face masks I had come across previously were extremely restrictive for those who have disabilities.”

Juliet began working on a prototype which used upcycled polythene bags, blended with African fabric to create a mask that keeps people safe and prevents them from having to remove the mask to communicate: “We work with people that need masks like this and we wanted to ensure they were comfortable, flexible and included the right mouthpiece adaptation.”

Juliet and her team prototyped the mask and shared it on Kimuli Fashionability’s social media platforms, where it gained a huge amount of traction. Within a week of posting, her first big order came from Chicago in the USA: “I honestly thought it was a joke at first! I couldn’t believe someone from a country as big as America would place an order for 600 masks. From rural Uganda, all the way to the States – wow!”

As an AdamStart winner, Juliet will travel to London for a fully sponsored trip in 2021 to take part in entrepreneurial training at Pearson Business School; have access to online training programmes; have the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles to spend time at the Dan Eldon Centre for Creative Activism in partnership with Creative Visions Foundation and explore opportunities for funding and financial backing, as well as having access to top level industry mentors and coaches.

“I thought winning the competition would be a good fit for Kimuli, so I applied. And here I am, I’m a winner! I can’t believe it. I’m really excited about the opportunities this brings. I can’t wait to learn more from AdamStart and expand my impact.”

Juliet hopes winning the competition will help her achieve her business objectives for the coming years: “My immediate priority is leaving the academy we’ve been working from for the last four years. Our working space is a challenge – my ultimate goal is to purchase some land and build a simple production site. That way we can expand production and employ more disabled individuals, giving them the best opportunities while sustaining the business.”

While Juliet and her team (whose lives have also been victimised as a result of their parent’s disabilities) built Kimuli Fashionability from scratch, she says, “I know my parents are with me. Their bodies may have died but their souls still live on. I’m happy I can make them proud.”