Last year’s earthquake destroyed hundreds of villages of my home country Nepal, one of them was Khokana, a tiny and traditional Newari village, proud of its history and intent in retaining its traditions and culture. The women of the village have been hand weaving fabrics for centuries and I am personally very connected with them as these weavers make the beautiful organic fabrics used in my wedding dress collection. I feel incredibly privileged as a designer, to be able to put their inspirational skills to good use and I am committed to continue to support reviving their industry further as my bridal collections evolve and help them recover from the devastating earthquake.

With great support of my lovely brides and their families, I started a fundraiser with the goal to support hand weavers in villages who lost their equipment during the shattering tragedy. I am very grateful to Tulsi Meher Mahila Ashram (part of Mahaguthi, Craft with a Conscience, which works with over 1000 artisans and provide regular employment and support to producers throughout Nepal, working with 100 producer groups in 15 regions of Nepal) for supporting such skilled weavers for our special fabric production since 2011 and to enable me to meet all these amazing women every time I visit Nepal. It has always been motivating and enthralling whenever I meet them. During my most recent visit only a month ago I had the opportunity to meet the women in the Khokana village again. I was amazed how the women hold up their good spirit and have smiles on their faces regardless of living in misery caused by the disastrous earthquake last year. Most of them still live in temporary camps and broken houses, surrounded by debris.

I loved spending time with them and sharing some laughs, thoughts and lunch (Yomari my favourite dish made by Radhika). It is absolutely inspirational and makes you feel so very grateful for the simplest things in your own life. I wanted to understand their problems and needs so we can support them with effective self-reliance & long term sustainable projects. The reality is that the small cottage industry and hand looming is actually on the verge of extinction. To improve their livelihood, providing necessary training and procuring more products made by these home-based workers is very important. I am working directly with the women from Khokana and also through Tulsi Meher Mahila Ashram on various projects like design intervention, skill adaptation and development, using natural resources and capacity enhancing trainings so their products can get regularly exported and valued globally.

I personally feel that supporting these women to become financially independent is the best way to ensure a brighter future for them and their children. I cannot thank everyone and every single bride enough for supporting my fundraiser to help these women during the aftermath of the earthquake.

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to say a huge thank you.

Lots of love
Sanyukta xx