Imagine for a moment a world where all women were happily employed, treated fairly, and also had the freedom to raise their children in the best way they can with ample opportunities for a sound education.  What if all women in the world who have enough savvy and a good education spent just a few hours a week helping uplift other women out of poverty and abuse, without imposing their cultural or religious beliefs on them?  

One example of this is the brilliance of microfinance and microlending for the poor, also known as the Grameen Banking System, developed by Dr. Muhahammad Yunus (http://www.grameen-info.org).  Microfinance helps people, mostly women, transcend poverty by giving them collateral-free loans to generate new businesses.  The money is then paid off and gets redistributed back to the other applicants as loans, therefore getting reallocated.

Raksha Bella produces our products through a cut and sew facility in Pune, India who employs up to 300 independent contractors that have risen out of poverty through the microfinance system.  All of the contractors are women, and many of them work as well as take care of their families and household duties.  A large percentage of these women have experienced domestic violence and or ill treatment.  Many women in the region of Maharashtra have lost their husbands, who were once farmers, to suicide due to heavy debts from crop failure.

The premise for developing such a business as ours is based in trust and the desire to empower people.  The problems of poverty in these regions and across the world have been soothed by efforts from the microfinance system.  

For me, working with a business model that not only produces a beautiful line of bedding with ancient artisan crafts and organic cotton, but at the heart of it believes that sustainability includes a framework for healing poverty is imperative.  Sustainability has to include not only solutions for the planet, but those who walk on the planet that are capable of healing it in masse.  This in turn creates a cultural model for new generations to start early in their upbringing by incorporating their sustainable values in everything they do.    It is simply not enough to apply a band-aid to a deep wound that actually needs further intervention. Not only are the children of the women who do our cut and sew beginning a life with fresh and progressive ideas based on long term sustainability, but my daughter and her generation are exposed as well, and hopefully our customer’s children, and so on.

Our company’s name is also its creed- Raksha, pronounced (ra-k-shaw), meaning protection in Sanskrit, and Bella, the Latin classic for beautiful. Appropriately, Raksha Bella’s philosophy is to protect what is beautiful with our devotion to hand-made organic textiles made by women with dignity .  We hope our products conjure more than just a stylish essential for any room in the home, but perhaps also a blissful slumber or a bucolic siesta hour, and that their lineage and craftsmanship helps beckon a new era; wholeness of body, mind, spirit integrated with practical and exquisite solutions for a better planet.


Cheers,

Carrie

Owner, Raksha Bella Organic Textiles

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