Showing posts tagged women
Go NYWSE How She Does It Dinner team! So glad it was a success.
.@susanmc1 at @nywse #howshedoesit dinner sharing her experience & info on #bcorp, #socent, #csr, storytelling thru #socialmedia (Taken with instagram)
"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."
— Indira Gandhi
The process of making sanitary napkins in an Indian Village.
These six women go to work every day to make sanitary napkins for girls and women in their communities. Such a small tool for empowerment, but this allows girls to go to school and women to go to work the whole month, instead of missing out to tend to their monthly condition. Monja, Khartun, Nitel, and Shanti… you inspire me.
Credits:
Video taken and put together by Rubina Pilot Project.
Footage taken on the Barefoot College Campus.
Music by Oh Land.
Event: Women Changing India
This looks pretty damn cool. My former client, Barnard College, is putting on its 4th annual symposium here in Mumbai on March 16th, honoring women that are making a positive impact in India. Registration opens soon… stay tuned!
And the Rubina Pilot Project begins…
I’m now settled in India which means that the Rubina Pilot Project has officially started!
What is the Rubina Pilot Project, you ask? Well, I’m here working to recruit the first round of designers + artisans to make unique, limited-edition accessory and home goods products for the online shop set to launch next summer after I return to Brooklyn. The designers and artisans are already working together, and as we sell the cool product they make for Rubina, we also will share the story of their collaboration online. (So think: Online shop and editorial platform featuring designers and artisans making cool and quality products together.)
These partnerships birth quite a story as it’s the blend of a designer, who have been formerly trained through years of study and practice on a mainstream commercial level, and an artisan, who have been taught their craft from birth by a mother who carried the tradition of color, pattern, and technique of the method from her mother and so on. As you can imagine, there are surely ups and downs when blending cultures, traditions, and methods. But there are those out there doing it well, with respect and ethics, and we want to feature them and the beautiful products that result.
The blog posts over the next 5 months will serve as the documentation of my process as I go through the Rubina Pilot. It is likely that what is written above may sound a bit different by the end as I too am learning what exactly “traditional craft” is (in India, at least) and how design is best utilized to empower those that are craftswomen. But the essence won’t change, which is that design + craft is a very powerful combination, and one that Rubina hopes to convey through an online platform where the people behind both can be celebrated, discussed, and exposed with the hopes of moving them forward to create positive change.
And may I ask of you: Please please please follow and give honest feedback. This is a for-profit venture and therefore needs to ultimately be providing something that people want. So, if you like something, let me know. If you see something you don’t like, also let me know (kindly would be appreciated ;-) ). If you have questions for me or those that I’m working with, ask away (either here or here)! I see Rubina as a huge collaboration with many players. And that means you!
One more thing, please check out the About page, scroll to the bottom, and see all the great people who have helped me thus far. They are indeed a dream team and I couldn’t be here without them.
Thanks for reading and here goes nothing!
