Favela's Endrow Metelus Is Empowering Communities Through Fashion and STEM

From episode: Favela Boys Apparel: Empowering Underserved Communities Through Fashion and STEM

everyone. This is Dr. Oh, how are you? Again, we are on one of the episodes, STEAM to a guest who is just phenomenal. His name is Andrew Matilas. He is incredible. I say that he is incredible because one of the things that he is doing that I truly like is that he had a fashion, actually a fashion design company, and it is called Favela, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, Favela Boys Apparel, correct. Oh my God. Wow. And then guess what he's doing? Guess what he's doing with that company? So he's also using that company, man. He's a man after my heart. He's also using that company actually to also get resources to sponsor STEM programs in the Caribbean and also in the United States. I thought that is innovative. I like that because we all know how it is difficult to get sponsors, right? Or when you write a grant, it's very competitive and it takes time. But having your own project and using part of that project to sponsor a STEM program, I think that it is innovative and all of us should be doing the same thing. We're smart enough to do that. I said I was going to use 10 % of my source, African source, if I ever get successful, right? He's going to be using, he told me that he's going to be using 15 % of his profit, whatever profit that he gets to sponsor his STEM programs. I thought that is innovative. Now he's challenging me now. Now I've started to reconsider my 10%. So let me let him introduce himself and tell us a little bit about what he's doing. Please go ahead. Hey, I'm doing great. Like I said, every day is a holiday and I really mean that. Life is beautiful, right? So thank you very much for having me. I'm gladly appreciated being here to talk about STEM and talking about the brand I have and also talking about how I can get pretty much people to come and be part of this project, right? Because it's not just for me, it's for us because we can all benefit from this, right? So just to go in more details, the brand name is Favela Boys Apparel, which is a brand that we donate 15 % of a net profit towards STEM education for underserved communities, right? So not only in the US, but we also operate in the US, Latin America, the Caribbean, as well as we're looking also into Africa. Just to give you a little example, earlier this year in January, I was in Brazil. We were donating a few computers to a nonprofit organization that focused on STEM because the kids needed for coding cybersecurity where they teach at that particular nonprofit organization, but also the adults will come in at night also learning different skills, different trade, that kind of system as well.