The Backpack Stories

As we travel all over the world with Akin, we meet the most incredible people and see the most beautiful places on planet earth.

The brand started with one goal in mind - help as many children as possible get into school around the world.

That will always be our number one focus but it doesn’t tell the whole story of Akin. There are so many people we meet who become part of the story. The creatives and artists we team up with here and everybody who becomes part of the journey. Our team members who make the impact in their communities possible, those who make the uniforms locally, the mums who walk us around the village proudly showing us their homes, and the curious, friendly villagers who just want to be part of the experience.

We want our ‘blog’ to be the stories of all the people that are part of Akin.

The places we spend time in are usually really remote areas where most people don’t easily have access to smart phones and cameras. We often get asked by members of the community to take a photo of them. It is so fun and even inspiring to see how happy they are to see themselves and how positively they react to seeing themselves on camera.

A couple of years ago I started taking a polaroid camera with me so I could leave a photograph with them to keep. It has produced some of the happiest moments on the road! We are going to share them here as part of the Akin stories.

-Ben Howells