During his nearly decade-long travels around the world for the oil and gas industry, one experience in particular stood out to Alessandro Teichner.

"I met a lady in the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, that worked from home sewing rugs," says Teichner, founder and chief good officer for COLORS FOR GOOD. "I was struck with the simple yet impactful business model behind it: the ‘hut industry’—where the artisan is provided in her home with a loom and spools financed by the company, along with the patterns to be woven in print."

Three years later, Teichner had quit his job and moved back to Mexico for a "much-needed kiteboarding sabbatical."

"I incorporated ‘20 Knots LLC’ to serve as a platform for my idea of a kiteboarding experience business," he says. "I also volunteered in a workshop in El Cuyo, a tiny fishing village, held by an NGO with the aim to empower women to have an income and purpose through artisanship. I taught them how to make bracelets with cords and knots, only to find out later that there were limited, almost impossible market conditions to actually sell these bracelets and provide an income."

An "aha" moment came from discussion with a Tulum hotel owner Teichner was teaching how to kiteboard.

"Together we envisioned: What if every hotel guest was welcomed with a beautiful, branded bracelet, handmade with love by a mother in El Cuyo, who now earns a decent living?" he says. "COLORS FOR GOOD was born as the hut industry business model made even simpler, where we go to remote and underserved communities and offer jobs that have no barriers of skill, tool, location or even language. We offer jobs to women, with preference to mothers. We are now proud to improve many lives in rural villages of the Yucatan, aiming to scale our impact globally."

COLORS FOR GOOD also brings bracelets to events—including an activation sponsored by Visit Oklahoma City at MPI’s WEC St. Louis.

"COLORS FOR GOOD products are based on chromatherapy (color therapy)—each color hue the attendee can choose has a meaning and resonates with that person’s values or even energy during the event," Teichner says. "There is true power in allowing attendees to choose the color of their lanyard or bracelet, as this simple act itself becomes an activation of its own by their choosing and wearing ‘perseverance,’ ‘love,’ ‘passion,’ ‘creativity’ and so on."

The response from WEC attendees was "absolutely amazing," Teichner says.

"Every single person we interacted with was super happy to learn about our story and enthusiastic about the possibilities of application in the industry around our products," he says. "Many were also asking how and where they could donate money to grow our impact."