Cottonseed.
 
We welcomed representatives of cottonseed for the presentation of the social enterprise award award co-sponsored between Newmarket Rotary and Akina.  A short video clip was played setting out how Akina operates. It provides work for migrant woman in the clothing industry. The enterprise sources material in the woman so clothes which are then sold funding the further acquisition of material and so on. The Akina award will go to fund the acquisition of further sewing machines giving employment to women who would otherwise be unemployed.
 
Cottonseed enables women to work, organise how they work manager how they work and gives control to them. As an enterprise that empowers those woman to take control of their lives, something they would not otherwise have been able to do.
 
We were told the women with whom Cottonseed work come from Somalia, Ethiopian, Thailand and Pakistan amongst other places.
 
Cottonseed was a worthy winner of the Akina/Rotary Newmarket Social Enterprise Award.