We are so pleased to hear the team is loving their new centre. The new space is bringing in an abundance of opportunities to support their dreams of creating a women's wellness hub alongside being a safe work environment for marginalised women of the Pondicherry community.
Ritika, the superstar centre manager, recently hosted an informal workshop on Menstrual Hygiene Day, to raise awareness about the importance of menstrual hygiene, and the nature of this topic being 'taboo'. These discussions led to beautiful open conversations where the women shared personal experiences with each other.
The women have been receiving further training in sewing and textiles, and loving the journey so far. They have now learnt how to design and make their own Block Print Dress from start to finish! “These last few months have been such an exciting time, as we are embarking on this new journey to introduce a slow-fashion label.” says Roja, Sewing the Seeds COO. The team is excited to release their own slow-fashion line in Spring/Summer of this year.
The centre has now been able to offer the women interest-free microfinance loans to women who have requested it to support their children's education. You can only imagine how supportive this must feel for some of these mothers! The team will also be looking into opening superannuation accounts for the women and provide education on financial literacy to support their increased sense of agency.
“While medical and public health professionals have expertly chosen the items in the Barakat Bundle, we knew that we could find quality items in the thriving and rapidly growing Indian marketplace. The Barakat Bundle team wanted to double down on our commitment to supporting local economies, so all of the items come from local small businesses.” says SriVani Ganti, Director of Communication.
Thank you for your support dear Daughters of India Community! With the help of your purchases, the women of Sewing the Seeds are achieving their goal of becoming a self-sufficient not-for-profit organisation! It is a blessing to share their stories of empowerment and how these women are creating ripples of positive change for generations to come.
Last, we also want to update our beautiful Daughters of India community on the impact of your contributions. To date, we're thrilled to share that, thanks to the generosity of the Daughters of India community, 400 Barakat Bundles have been developed, and two complete trainings for 50 community health workers have been funded across 6 locations!
Every purchase is truly making a difference, we are beyond grateful for your support.
With love, Daughters of India x
