“In Palestine there are still a lot of factories that make leather objects, but there has been a huge loss in quality. The craftsmen don’t get the good materials, new tools are very hard to come by and there are hardly any opportunity to further develop one’s skills, due to the lack of training facilities and educational opportunities. Even a project as DDFP can’t help us with this. It is neither their objective.

I remember well when suddenly two foreign designers, Moniek Driesse (NL) and David Juan Ortiz (ES) were standing in my studio. They told me that they were participating in a design workshop and that they were looking for a partner to make a wallet. That was a totally new experience to me.

Because of the occupation, it is a real problem for us to export our products. Everything is stopped at the border. But even when I would manage to send my products abroad, I wouldn’t be able to get paid. Israeli laws make it impossible to pay me with Visa or to allow me to receive foreign money transfers. The DDFP platform has helped me to overcome these problems, as they don’t experience the same restrictions for export. They can also collect the money and make payments to me. Unfortunately, for the moment I only have two products in their collection. So the financial impact is yet not very big. I can only hope that DDFP becomes a big company so they can sell and buy a lot of our products. They are quite unique and we need them. To my knowledge there are no other organisations that can support us in selling our products outside Palestine.

I was very happy when I saw my name on the brochure of Disarming Design, together with the products I made. That was a real boost of confidence for me. It strengthened my self-esteem, knowing that I was given the opportunity to let the people know who I am and what I am capable of.” — From Kurt Vanbelleghem interview, Can one really benefit from a social design project, or is it just another spin at the wheel?

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