In Senegal communities work like great networks of solidarity. Five years ago we used this cultural background to create the Sindicato de Vendedores Ambulantes de Barcelona (Union of Street Vendors of Barcelona) and support each other.

Two years later we created the brand Top Manta in order to offer an alternative lifestyle to the colleagues who survive from street vending and find themselves in precarious living conditions as well as in social and administrative exclusion.

Today, our project becomes a Cooperative: investing in a horizontal space based on the social and solidarity economy. It is an alternative option to savage capitalism and to individualism, which regulates the current system.

The history of Africa is the history of colonization, exploitation and spoliation. A history that we share with all the southern world. Our lands and our bodies know very well that wealth is not innocent from poverty, and that is the reason why we, at Top Manta, are committed to a production model based on no exploitation and a fair wage.

These trainers are being manufactured in small local workshops that share our values. We know the material, the origin and the name of the people working on each piece making up the sneakers Ande Dem, and we can affirm that they developed their work under the best conditions.

The best of this world is that a lot of worlds can be fitted in it. While some insist in giving up the beauty of humanity, which is the diversity of all cultures of the world , we persist in sharing our knowledge with the land which welcomes us and with the whole world to make it richer, more pluralistic and beautiful.

The pattern we designed for the sneakers Ande Dem wants to represent our diverse identity, halfway between Senegal and Barcelona.

Throughout history, black people have been treated with inferiority: have been exploited and discriminated against by the power of the global north. Nowadays, sadly, inequality is still in force and racism, which is intrinsic in all societies, totally affects our lives.

Top Manta is radically anti racist and defends the equality of opportunities for all people regardless of the colour of their skin or their origin.

There’s no possible decent life without social justice. As long as some people will have so much and others so little, we will continue to live a violent way of life which condemns so many people to the margins of society.

We know, as migrant people, what living in this periphery means, and that’s why we know that an alternative way of life is a must.