Kantamanto Market: Where Repair Is Resistance

I'm Francesco Pelosi, a design student from Italy.

Over the past semester, I’ve been studying, researching, and actively working on unpacking the global fashion system and confronting its uncomfortable truths.

I came face to face with the harsh reality behind fast fashion’s production lines, where the exploitation of labor is normalized and overlooked. But what shocked me most was discovering what happens to the clothes we buy - and quickly discard - when they become waste.

These garments are exported, often disguised as donations to so-called “developing countries,” many of which lack efficient recycling systems.

There, the clothes pile up in massive open-air landfills, where they are left to decompose over hundreds of years, polluting the environment and seriously endangering the health of local communities.

One of the most powerful and paradoxical examples is Kantamanto, a second-hand clothing market in Ghana that expanded significantly during the 1980s and ’90s, alongside the globalization of the fashion industry and the rise of fast fashion brands.

Kantamanto exists because of the sheer volume of textile waste exported under the guise of donations - a consequence of overproduction and overconsumption in the Global North. And yet, within this harsh reality, something incredible is happening: Kantamanto has become a hub of resilience, where more than 30,000 people are working to give new life to discarded garments, practicing upcycling, mending, and resale as daily forms of resistance.

It’s a place that embodies both the damage caused by a broken system and the ingenuity of those trying to repair it. A painful result of global ignorance and, at the same time, a vital model for a more circular future in fashion.

This fundraiser is dedicated to The Revival Earth Org., a community-led initiative working directly within Kantamanto to rebuild systems of repair, care, and sustainability from the ground up. They’re not just repairing clothes: they’re building systems of care, dignity, and sustainability in a space flooded by global waste. And they need support.

As a student and a not-yet-designer, I can’t solve this problem on my own. But I can amplify it. I can share what I’ve learned, challenge fashion waste, and support those already leading the repair movement.

ALL donations will go directly to Revival Earth and the Kantamanto community.

This is not charity - it’s solidarity.