Nuh dash mi weh! That’s Jamaican for “don’t throw me away.” It also happens to be the name of a Jamaica-by-way-of-Brooklyn initiative that teaches reusable-bag sewing to encourage environmentalism and promote self-sustainability. Behind the campaign are two Brooklyn-based non-profits, Bags For The People and iJamaica.

BFTP holds bag-making workshops for kids and adults, hands out bags at Union Square’s Greenmarket, and co-sponsors “Sweatshop Social” with 3rd Ward, among many other events and programs that dot their busy calendar. iJamaica was founded by Deanne Ziadie, Shauna Murray and Katie Loveday and their mission is fourfold: Reduce waste via reusable bags, teach sewing skills, support job creation through these skills, and foster cultural pride in the process.

The two organizations established a love connection last August when Deanne Ziadie attended a BFTP workshop at Williamsburg’s Spacecraft to learn the basics behind making bags out of recycled clothes and materials. There she met BFTP’s Glenn Robinson, a sometime graphic designer who is involved with the city’s Greenmarkets and was named NY1’s NYer Of The Week for his cloth-bags-at-the-market endeavor. Some conversation and collaboration later and the two organizations partnered.

Deanne is a second-generation “Jamerican;” her parents fled Jamaica in 1979 because of civil violence. She visited the island for the first time in 2006 as part of UMass Boston’s Africana Studies program. While in Jamaica she met Shauna, who was also a Boston-based Africana Studies student. The third founder, Katie, was introduced to Deanne while making a documentary on Rastafarianism.

The “three little birds,” as Deanne refers to their iJamaica trio, all shared the desire to make Jamaica self-sustainable. Deanne moved to Jamaica this January to spearhead the Nuh Dash Mi Weh campaign while Glenn continues to be the New York contact until he too travels to Jamaica later this spring. There they will both be teaching sewing workshops–Glenn for six weeks, Deanne on a more indefinite basis. One will be held at the Sandy Bank Primary School, which received sewing machines from Singer in support of the project. Deanne’s ambitious work with iJamaica will also be endorsed by Lorna Golding, the first lady of Jamaica.

While the campaign is off the ground and running, both in Brooklyn and in Jamaica, more funding is needed for its continuation. iJamaica is holding a Nuh Dash Mi Weh fundraising dinner that takes place Saturday, April 10th at Spacecraft (355 Bedford Avenue), with an RSVP required by April 8. A three-course Jamaican meal will be served at $75 a head with menu items like cassava cakes with hot pepper marmalade, jerk chicken and rum cakes with melted cacao, all washed down with either Red Stripe or wine (or both if that’s how you roll). You’ll also head home with a BFTP bag. If you can’t make it to the dinner, general donations to iJamaica can be made here.

Text by Alicia Kachmar, sent by Annaliese. Photos courtesy of Bags for the People and iJamaica via Flickr.