Soraia is 24 years old and full of dreams. Who knows, maybe she´ll found a sportswear brand or become a commercial model. Only time will tell. She grew up on a social housing estate in Alfragide and attended Academia do Johnson – a local association dedicated to supporting children, young people and families in vulnerable situations – when, in 2021, this institution gave her the opportunity to expand her horizons. Driven by curiosity and an interest in trying out new things, she didn´t think twice about enrolling in iMAGINE, a training programme for young people at risk of exclusion. “It enabled me to develop several skills, particularly in the areas of entrepreneurship, communication and creativity, and we established an excellent relationship that continues to this day,” says a smiling Soraia, a firm believer of a better tomorrow.
It´s young people like Soraia, who was part of the first group of trainees, the Originals, from the Zambujal district, that the iMAGINE programme seeks to help create a brighter future.
The path of this young woman, who is currently working at a private security company, overlaps with the inspiring story of João Esteves, the entrepreneur behind DiVERGE, a brand of customisable sneakers created in 2019 to generate social and environmental impact.
The logic from the outset was to place value on individuals, enabling anyone to create sneakers in line with their own tastes and “a piece of their soul”, in addition to helping combat overproduction in the fashion industry, selling their creations on a strict to-order basis. “We want to be a brand where everyone can be themselves and stand out in the world of fashion, with its huge levels of production and the resulting generation of waste and massive consumption of resources. Producing on a strict to-order basis enables us to minimise our footprint,” explains the entrepreneur who, at the same time, wanted to place his platform at the service of the community after the pandemic boosted the spirit of mutual assistance, especially among those most in need: “In this case, a demographic featuring highly specific risks, namely young people between 16 and 24 years of age, which is why we created iMAGINE, a social impact programme that uses sneakers as a practical instrument of change”.
Employability and entrepreneurship training programmes have already been implemented in several places in the country, including Sines, where the session we recorded was held with a group of young people at risk of exclusion, but who were extremely interested and keen to participate. The goal now is to reach around 600 young people in the next two and a half year
How iMAGINE works
João Esteves has already begun travelling around the country to further promote iMAGINE and what he believes in, based on his own experience: “it´s always possible to acquire new skills and change your life”. The training sessions began in Greater Lisbon, where he lives, and moved on to Felgueiras and Torres Vedras, and Energiser went to meet him at the Sines Arts Centre, where, at the time of this report, a training session was taking place with a group of at-risk young people from the region. We took the opportunity to watch and find out a little more about the programme in which young people like Soraia are invited to participate.
The idea is to provide them with the tools to customise their own sneakers with the ultimate aim of launching their own models on the platform under their own name. A unique collection where the individual in question is the face of the brand and tells their own story. They receive a commission on the sales achieved. In return, they are required to undergo an employability and entrepreneurship training process to gain an understanding of how this world works, how they need to behave and how they can embark on ambitious professional projects and be successful. “This is what´s important”, explains João Esteves, a graduate in Management who, before becoming an entrepreneur at the age of 43, had a successful career in Communications and Marketing with the brands of major companies in various sectors of activity both in Portugal and abroad.
