Juta Shoes is a social enterprise in East London supporting women into work through shoemaking.
In Tower Hamlets, over a quarter of the population is unemployed or underwaged, and women, especially those from minority backgrounds, are even more likely to be financially and socially excluded. Many women face barriers to work such as expensive childcare, lack of educational qualifications or relevant employment history, English as a second language, or low confidence.
Juta Shoes exists to support, train and employ women in Tower Hamlets who face these barriers to work. We offer flexible, well-paid, creative work handcrafting our reclaimed leather espadrilles and teaching our shoemaking workshops. The women we support have amazing craft skills, and are passionate makers and patient teachers.
Our shoes are handmade and eco-friendly - they require no machinery or glues to create, and three of the four materials are biodegradeable. We use reclaimed leather donated to use from industry offcuts, and work with upcycled vegan materials.
Being part of our community of makers reduces social isolation, learning employability skills boosts confidence, and being paid for their valuable creative work increases financial inclusion and self-worth.
We make our shoes to order from our range of reclaimed materials, and also design exclusive collaboration collections with retailers. We run shoemaking workshops in partnership with organisations like AirBnB, Anthropologie, Daylesford Farm, and Ozone Coffee, and also create bespoke events for birthday parties, hen dos, and team building events.