Akrisah Helig – Faith and Community Action Sustainability Leadership
Owner-Founder, Kreations Upcycle Furniture Manufacturing
Her faith-driven entrepreneurial journey started when she worked as a campus missionary on a Christian Organization in 2014. Akrisah produced and sold bible and journal covers to raise money for her students’ summer camps. Her calling continued when she resigned from her job in 2015 to pursue her Master of Divinity degree at a seminary. She also served as the senior pastor of their local church.
To financially support herself with her studies and the ministry given to her, Akrisah established KREations crochet which sells T-shirts, Yarns, or Retaso. She leveled up her mission by teaching the women in their barangay how to crochet —- where they sold finished products to raise funds for their church’s summer camp and help ladies come up with livelihood.
As she continues to create with a heart, the Department of Trade of Industry of Rizal Province recognized her business. This opened another thread of opportunity when they provided her training on how to run an enterprise, plus the marketing opportunities by participating in National Trade Fairs.
Akrisah chose to build her company as a social enterprise so that she could help more mothers in other communities. She started to manufacture bags and taught more women how to make these eco-friendly products. Woven by her faith, pursuit of happiness, and willingness to help others, Akrisah founded Kreations Upcycle Furniture Manufacturing.
Though, some situations might prick you. The pandemic brought a negative impact on her company. Yet, Akrisah still viewed it as a chance for her to focus on designing and developing a product that aims to upcycle fabric waste.
Akisah shared that according to the Local Government Unit of Taytay Rizal — the Garment Capital of the Philippines —10 tons of retaso from the garments and small patahian goes to the landfill. The bottom line is, fabric waste pollutes our landfills. According to the research, it will take 200 years for a textile to decompose, and currently, we don’t have a textile recycling facility in the Philippines.
That’s how her thread of light comes up! Through the UpBean Bag Project, which focuses on helping small patahian in Taytay, Rizal to earn extra money from retaso, they have saved tons of fabric waste that might end up in landfills. How amazing that a simple scrap of clothing became a bridge for Akrisah to bring forth sustainable and higher income to the women artisans of Antipolo City and Taytay.
She explained how this circular business model works, starting from collecting fabric waste from a small patahian in Taytay Rizal, shredding it for inner filling, and cutting the scraps into patterns for the outer sheet. The retaso will be sewn into a bean bag by their KREations women artisans.
As a social entrepreneur, seeing the transformation and empowerment in each woman’s life made Akrisah’s mission and thread of fulfillment untangled.
She proudly shared that last year, they were able to provide a livelihood to 25 mothers from different communities in Rizal Province and upcycled almost 300 kilograms of fabric waste.
Follow Akrisah’s mission on her Facebook and Website!
Check out her work at akreh.upcycled
Meet the 8 Leaders in the 1st Sustainability Leadership Awards
Sustainability UNPLUGGED 2021 is the inaugural summit of SustainablePH, Society of Sustainability Practitioners, SustainablePH Youth, and Christian + Collective, where we brought together sustainability champions in various sectors into a half-day gathering to unplug and celebrate with the nation’s growing sustainability community.
Photo Header by: Giulia Lopez
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Crisyll Torres
Admin and Partnerships Head of SustainablePH
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