About Us
Angie Cohen
Co-Founder & Creative Director
Paula Villamizar
Co-Founder & Head of Growth
We're the Khan Academy for a girl's basic human needs.
Our team carefully crafts learning programs with a focus on a dedicated one-on-one approach, ultimately providing the necessary tools for girls & women to succeed.
With these learned skills, communities and families all benefit.
Our aim is simple; to change the cycle of poverty through creativity, for as many women as possible, one person at a time.
DesignLab Give (DLG) was born in 2017, when Angie Cohen, the founder of DesignLab Miami—a creative sewing studio—shared her vision with a few of her students.
“My dream is to teach these classes to the women who need them and don’t have the same privilege to access them."
Sharing her vision, Paula Villamizar took this dream to another level by founding DLG. Soon enough, other team members joined.
Why Online Tutorials?
We were scheduled to travel to Kenya in June 2020, but the trip was canceled due to the pandemic. We turned a problem into a solution by connecting with our students via Zoom. What started as a virtual greeting with our Dago students became a fully-fledged class.
Without much to lose, we followed the rest of the world and reinvented our workshops to weekly 2-hour classes. We have fought language barriers, connectivity issues, the limits of manual sewing machines, lack of proper fabrics and many other challenges. Nevertheless, DLG has sparked creativity by showing a group of girls across the globe that anything is possible. We have taught classes from apron to backpacks, our favorite tutorial being the reusable feminine care pad so Dago girls can manage their periods the way they deserve.
Simple tutorials such as ours are the beginning of many possibilities.
Special Thanks to Our Incredible Volunteers
Our volunteers are the soul of our organization. We have both teens and adults dedicating their time in any which way possible, truly believing in all that we do.
None of our work at DLG would be a reality without their dedication to our various endeavors.
Together, DLG has grown into what it is today. And we are grateful for them.
