Our factory, Hopewell Footwear, is located in the beautiful East Coast city of Durban, surfing capital of South Africa. It is a third generation, locally owned, family business. The fourth generation is studying a footwear degree in London, and will be working in Italy to prepare him to take over the family business. The longest serving employee has been at Hopewell for 48 years. Owner Ebrahim Shaikh says many of the employees have been with them for as long as he can remember. In short, people love working there.
Hopewell is a member of fairfactories.org. They take full accountability in running their factory in an ethical and transparent manner, with very strict fair labour, health, and safety procedures.
South Africa has an unemployment rate of over 30% so it's important to us to help support the local people and economy.
Sourcing most of the footwear components locally, enables us to support a wide range of South African companies, and reduce our carbon footprint.