Iris Strill and Bishwadeep Moitra based SilaiWali, a social enterprise in India that empowers Afghan refugee ladies by serving to them flip waste cloth into handcrafted rag dolls. Via this, they’ve additionally diverted round 15,000 kg of cloth from landfills up to now.
In 2017, Iris Strill and Bishwadeep Moitra met a bunch of Afghan refugee ladies in Delhi who have been struggling to outlive attributable to lack of employment and revenue. These ladies had fled Afghanistan when the Taliban resurgence started in 2010-11.
“In 2011, shortly after the US killed Osama bin Laden, it began withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. After a while, the Taliban began coming again with new leaders. In the meantime, its ladies began looking for shelter in India,” says Bishwadeep.
“Once we met them in Delhi, their state of affairs was dire. They have been hardly surviving as they have been with none employment and incomes. They have been compelled to promote no matter that they had introduced from their homeland,” he provides.
The couple was motivated to financially empower these Afghan ladies. A yr later in 2018, the couple began ‘SilaiWali’, a social enterprise that creates rag dolls, pouches, purses, wall artwork, and hangings from upcycled waste cloth generated in extra from garment manufacturing models.
Beginning with 10 ladies, they’re now offering a livelihood to greater than 70 Afghan refugee ladies. Whereas doing so, they’ve additionally been in a position to divert greater than 15,000 kg of cloth from getting into into landfills.
Bringing completely different nationalities collectively
Iris, an artwork and design scholar from France, had come to India within the Nineteen Nineties for her diploma mission as a part of her last yr task of artwork college. She began coming to India to work with varied non-profit organisations to coach Indian artisans in making merchandise that might be offered within the worldwide market.
She completely settled in India in 2006 after her marriage to Bishwadeep, a former journalist, whom she met at a yoga centre.
Iris continued to work as a design marketing consultant with worldwide clothes manufacturers. That’s when she was struck by the large quantities of cloth waste generated by the style trade in India.
“She used to go to many of those factories in Delhi, which is a giant manufacturing hub for a lot of worldwide trend manufacturers. She found that cloth waste is discarded in excessive bulk portions. It was right here that she was struck with the thought to make use of the scraps for making a helpful product,” shares Bishwadeep.
“As she was already coaching artisan teams, she got here throughout a marginalised group of Afghan refugee ladies. The refugee challenge was near her coronary heart. We thought that this might be a good suggestion because it was tough for us additionally to faucet into the abilities of artisans who reside in far off tribal villages. We determined to marry each the ideas of upcycling cloth waste and producing employment for refugee ladies,” he provides.
In a bid to do one thing significant, Bishwadeep give up his job as an government editor at Outlook information journal and co-founded SilaiWali alongside along with his spouse. “Journalism allowed me a strategy to work for society however I wished to do one thing in another way and I wished to be of service to society in a direct method. I used to be motivated by my spouse to work on the grassroots degree,” he provides.
Thereafter, the couple determined to begin SilaiWali in 2018 for monetary independence of Afghan ladies refugees in India.
Catering to 150 cities worldwide
On the firm, Bishwadeep shares that after the waste cloth is sourced from garment factories, it’s sorted, lower, and remodeled by these refugee artisans into dolls and different residence decor objects; incorporating conventional embroidery, stitching, and crocheting strategies.
The handcrafted dolls replicate the personalities and tales of the artisans, making every creation a logo of resilience and creativity. “It’s all handwork and every doll displays the distinctive personalities of the artisan who crafted it,” he provides.
SilaiWali participates in commerce exhibits within the US and Paris, boosting its presence within the international market. With this, the couple has been in a position to faucet right into a rising demand for these dolls in 150 cities worldwide in the UK, Japan, Korea, France, and Australia, and in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Chennai, and Goa inside India.
The handcrafted objects by SilaiWali vary from Rs 820 to Rs 5400. The model exports items value $200,000 yearly, with peak seasons round September to December to cater to Christmas and Halloween orders.
Up to now, SilaiWali claims to have educated and reskilled 325 ladies refugees. “At one level, we had 150 such ladies working with us. However most of them migrated to Canada attributable to altering immigration insurance policies,” shares Bishwadeep. Regardless of dealing with such challenges, SilaiWali continues to make a big influence.
Speaking concerning the wages of the artisans, Bishwadeep says it’s calculated following the wage ladder mandated by the World Truthful Commerce Organisation. “Whereas the incomes range from artisan to artisan, they earn between Rs 12,000 to Rs 14,000 each month. It could additionally improve relying on elements like gross sales and particular orders,” he provides.
Sharing her expertise of working with these ladies, Iris says, “Afghan ladies have a pleasing manner. They’re very happy with their heritage. They hearken to my directions and aren’t afraid to disagree with me when obligatory. They’ve proven superb resilience in rebuilding their lives in India, nonetheless short-term their present residence could also be. Many SilaiWali ladies have damaged the glass ceiling by being the sole-earning members of their households.”
“Earlier, these households have been struggling to make ends meet. Their kids couldn’t be despatched to high school. We’re glad that our intervention has considerably eased their state of affairs,” provides Iris, who finds this work extraordinarily fulfilling.
Wanting again at his resolution to give up journalism to determine a profession within the social enterprise sector, Bishwadeep says, “What we do impacts so many households and supplies them with dignity, spending energy, demolishing the patriarchal system, and creating an influence that may be seen on the bottom. This work gave me a possibility to instantly interact with the marginalised sections on the grassroots.”
Edited by Padmashree Pande. All pictures: SilaiWali social verticals.
