During the dark days of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns globally, our team in India desperately wanted to do something to help our Makers and their community.

The effects of the pandemic on our Maker community

We knew that we were facing tough times and wanted to support our Makers (the collective name we give to the women who so lovingly stitch our ranges of clothing and homeware) as much as we could. We did inevitably lose touch with a number of our Makers sadly but we were able to keep in contact with a several women in Bengaluru, where our unit is located, as well as our Maker group in the Sundarbans, in eastern India.

We wanted to be able to give stitching work to the women to provide them with much needed income but the team in India also wanted to do something for their community. They came up with a plan to run a campaign, asking people to make a contribution towards the stitching of face masks that the Makers would undertake and receive an income with the finished masks being distributed free of charge to those most in need.

How this worked

We went out to our customers, telling them about our plans, and asked them to purchase a pack of face masks for themselves and add another pack to their order which would be distributed to the communities. We couldn't have been more thrilled with the response and we managed to be able to distribute well over 2000 masks in both southern and eastern India.

The time has come to close the campaign

We have kept the campaign running up until now as the world has experienced new variants of the Covid-19 virus and many people were still wearing face masks. We have now decided that the time is right for us to close the campaign and say a huge and heartfelt thank you to every person who has contributed to this important appeal.

This is the first time that we have run such a campaign and have learned so much from running it and more than anything, we have been bowled over by the generosity shown.

Once again, thank you to everyone who helped to make the campaign so successful.