Faiza Hajji Wozniak

First Place, Photo Essay

IFASSEN is a fair trade project that was launched by Faiza in partnership between the Government of France and her hometown in Morocco. Through IFASSEN and with her two partners, Faiza has been working to decrease the number of plastic bags in the environment, while helping Moroccan women receive a fair income.

IFASSEN, which means ‘hands’ in Berber, employs 21 craftswomen in the making of fashion accessories. The women collect the discarded plastic bags that litter their community’s fields and streets, then clean, dry and weave them together with local alfa grass that they pick. The women use a method of basket weaving that is traditional to the region. It takes about 100 plastic bags to make a typical IFASSEN bag, a small but hopeful percentage of the 2.5 billion plastic bags discarded in Morocco each year.

The project has won several awards, including a prestigious award from the French Ministry of Finance. IFASSEN's products are exported to France, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United States.

"A wise man was saying that we must be the change we want to see in the world,” Faiza said. “I have grown up with the will to change things little by little, even through a tiny contribution.”