●●○ medium
There is no confirmed −; independently verified + decide the position (B). No unreachable strike-through.= non-additive meter
Rags2Riches (R2R / Intentionality, Inc.): Turning scraps from a dumpsite into dignified craft. Payatas, once Metro Manila's largest dumpsite, was home to about 500,000 people, where women scavenged cloth scraps on the trash mountain and wove them into rugs to scrape by. But middlemen siphoned the profit, and some earned only 12–16 pesos per rug (about $0.3 a day). In 2007, Reese Fernandez-Ruiz and young companions launched Rags2Riches (R2R / Intentionality, Inc.) and cut out the middlemen — paying fair wages, bringing in top Filipino designers to raise the design, and opening a higher market for eco-ethical fashion and goods made from discarded scraps and Indigenous weaves. Beyond income, it offers an artisan academy, financial education including savings accounts and microinsurance, and health training, and created a producer cooperative co-owned by the artisans. It works with about 200–250 artisans across 8 areas of Metro Manila, saving hundreds of tons of textile waste from landfill. The letter is B; certainty is medium. Unconfirmed concerns are placed under “Watching.” (As of 2026-Q2; estimate based on public information.)
Main narrative
Payatas, once Metro Manila's largest dumpsite, was home to about 500,000 people, where women scavenged cloth scraps on the trash mountain and wove them into rugs to scrape by. But middlemen siphoned the profit, and some earned only 12–16 pesos per rug (about $0.3 a day).
In 2007, Reese Fernandez-Ruiz and young companions launched Rags2Riches (R2R / Intentionality, Inc.) and cut out the middlemen — paying fair wages, bringing in top Filipino designers to raise the design, and opening a higher market for eco-ethical fashion and goods made from discarded scraps and Indigenous weaves. Beyond income, it offers an artisan academy, financial education including savings accounts and microinsurance, and health training, and created a producer cooperative co-owned by the artisans. It works with about 200–250 artisans across 8 areas of Metro Manila, saving hundreds of tons of textile waste from landfill.
One person’s story (N1)
+ before → after
Ms. Cabrera is one of the earliest artisans from Payatas. Now, as community enterprise manager, she organizes other weavers and handles material purchasing. In her 40s, she opened a bank account for herself and her niece for the first time in her life and set money aside to repair her parents' house. Some of her peers have saved enough to send a child to university. “I learned how to save, and I gained confidence” — her way of picturing her life and future changed entirely.
Source nature: CNBC Make It / P2 major media. Positive effects are not used to offset negatives.
Positive / negative effects
+ effects
- Founder Reese Fernandez-Ruiz was named a Rolex Young Laureate (2010), a WEF Young Global Leader (2012), the Schwab Foundation's Social Entrepreneur of the Year (2013), to Forbes' “30 Under 30,” and an Eileen Fisher Women Entrepreneur grantee (2015), among others. The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB/MIF) and the National University of Singapore Business School have done case studies, and it appears in the UN DESA SDG Partnerships. Vogue, CNN, The Guardian, and others have reported on it.P1 award/academic / Rolex / WEF / Schwab Foundation / IADB
− effects (confirmed)
- No confirmed −.
- Independent quantitative verification of income/QOL effects; artisan retention and scaling; revenue sustainability
A second look
Artisan numbers (about 200–250 active) and income/livelihood-improvement figures are company/case-study-based; while over 1,000 were trained, one analysis finds about 150 still active, so retention and scale have limits. Sales are small (about 90% domestic), and there is no RCT-type independent verification of income/QOL effects.
Sources
How to read this assessment
- Reachable upper bound (ceiling): a confirmed − sets the ceiling, and independently verified + decide the position within it. + do not cancel out −.
- The weight of evidence is not symmetric: only confirmed − are counted; the volume of disputes or allegations goes under “Watching.” + are counted from independent evidence, while an organization’s own PR is treated as “reference.”
- Size is not value: scale is not used in the assessment. Matters that stay within money or competition—investors, shareholders, sanctions, trade secrets—are also excluded.
- The letter (assessment) and certainty (how reliable the information is) are separate axes.
This is a translation; the Japanese version is authoritative. The assessments here are generated automatically by AI based on published criteria. The operator does not alter individual results. Because they are AI-generated they may contain errors, and they are opinion and commentary, not statements of fact. Where evidence is insufficient, the entry is marked “On hold.” Requests for correction are accepted via the form.
Terms: Narrative Value = an assessment (A–G) of the distance between the story an organization tells and its reality / Ceiling meter = a visualization of the reachable upper bound / Watching = unconfirmed matters not counted / Protected stakeholders = people, animals, nature, and future generations. | Generated by: AI | As of: 2026-Q2 | Back to top