Palestyle Becomes The First Certified Social Enterprise in The Middle East With The Sroi Certification

Palestyle, the Dubai based social fashion brand, has measured its social impact through an extensive process called Social Return on Investment set by SROI Network and has become the first SROI certified social business in the Middle East.

“We ran the certification project to be able to understand and maximize the social impact that our work creates and to guide our long-term development projects improving quality of life.” said Zeina Abou Chaaban, Founder and Managing Director of Palestyle. Since 2009, Palestyle has empowered refugee women by providing them with embroidery job opportunities and conducting social development projects in refugee camps.

The SROI study determines the social-economic impact of a company by evaluating the impact on beneficiaries, identifying ways to improve social or environmental performance and enhancing the performance of investments. The social-economic impact is measured in dollars that will be generated for every dollar invested into the enterprise. “The SROI study was an extensive project that we undertook during 8 months to research our social projects on the ground. We are extremely proud to announce the results and that every dollar invested in Palestyle doubles the social value created in the camp ($2.40 in social return).” Abou Chaaban continued.

“As a part of our core business activity, we are providing job opportunities on a continuous basis to Palestinian refugee women with embroidery skills. In addition, a percentage of our sales supports social development projects inside and outside the camp.” explained Ahmed Abou Chaaban, Partner and Creative Director of Palestyle. So far Palestyle has been able to empower over 100 refugee women and benefited over 4,000 refugees with social projects like the Water Tank Exchange Program in the Baqaa camp and the olive tree plantation in Palestine.

Palestyle partnered  with the U.A.E. based social enterprise and SROI accredited practitioner C3 to conduct the SROI study. C3 standing for Consult and Coach for a Cause enables Middle East’s emerging social entrepreneurs to become active agents of positive social change by leveraging business professionals seeking meaningful ways to give back. Alexandre Lemille, Head of Social Impact at C3 said that the conducted SROI study found that Palestyle has been able to create high impact with limited investment. “By providing refugee women with embroidery work, Palestyle creates an impact on both economical and psychological level.” Lemille said. He continued, “In addition to gaining additional income to support their families, women gain confidence and sense of achievement on working on something which will be worn internationally with pride and getting paid for their skills. As the women work under professional guidelines and deadlines, their professional skills and productivity are improved drastically. They also become very important role models for other females by setting up new standards for women’s status in the community - earning a living and keeping embroidery tradition alive.”

“Following the findings, we will focus on partnering with women and their daughters to build productive teams that can take more embroidery work. We will also start to communicate our findings on our product tags so that our clients can truly conceptualize the change that they are contributing when they buy a Palestyle product,” said Zeina Abou Chaaban. “We now understand what women working with us enjoy, expect and dream about. They have a vision of many aspects of their working and personal life,” Abou Chaaban concluded.