Makers Unite

Updated: 13/03/2018

Solution provider

Netherlands
Makers Unite is a social enterprise that uses the power of making to connect local people an newcomers as asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants. Together we design and make sustainable products with stories that matter. Our program supports participants to a next step in their professional career in the areas of education, entrepreneurship and employment.

Makers Unite is a social enterprise that uses the power of making to connect local people and newcomers as asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants. Together we design and make sustainable products with stories that matter. Our programs support participants to a next step in their professional career in the areas of education, entrepreneurship and employment.

Makers Unite brings together local Amsterdammers and creative newcomers to design and make meaningful and sustainable products. Yet the final product is not central to the project. By making things together, the participants talk to each other and start new relationships, which help newcomers find their way in a new Amsterdam context.


Moreover, Makers Unite supports newcomers in their professional needs, introduces them to the Dutch labour market and connects them to training programs, internships and workplaces in the creative sector.
Since 2016 Makers Unite has assisted more than 70 newcomers building the first steps of their career in The Netherlands and provided workshop and trainings.


Currently focused on the expansion of programs and product line, the organisation is supported by a social business model composed of commercial revenue from products and private subsidized funding.
The social enterprise is winner of: Refugee Challenge organised by What Design Can Do, UNHCR and Ikea Foundation, ABN AMRO Social Entrepreneurship Prize and Amsterdammers Maak Je Stad.



Related content:

People: