Helping women stand on their feet
DNA, January 22, 2010
Mumbai: Within a single year, 16 women in Hubli are making and selling designer wear in Amsterdam. The transition was scripted by Moniek van Erven from Holland.
It happened by chance that Erven after graduating with a degree in economics and finance, came to India to do voluntary work for Mann Desi Mahila Microcredit Bank in Mhaswad village in Maharashtra.
The position focused on providing incubation, marketing and giving legal advice to women who had entrepreneurial ideas, but lacked education to setup their venture.
Apart from unavailability of infrastructure and technical facilities in their village, Erven also realised that these destitute women were yearning for a dignified life. All of them had different stories of struggle against forced marriage, abusive and alcoholic husbands and were coping against early widowhood. But they had different dreams for their daughters and wanted to give them a decent life.
This was the turning point for Erven to decide what she wanted to do in life. She knew that women had basic sewing skills and a desire to improve their economic condition. With all this in mind, she started Satara Foundation with the aim to produce fashion apparel. The first part of Van Erven’s venture was entirely self-financed.
Her grandmother had recently passed away and left her a small inheritance, which she used to fund her travel and buy fabrics. But the experiment was a big disaster since the product was not good.
Her intention was to inculcate entrepreneurship among these women and so Mann Desi Mahila Micro-Credit Bank also come to help these women. Van Erven realised that it was not enough to establish the Satara Foundation as fashion brand in the foreign market.
Erven realised she required some modern machines and someone to train the women to use such machines to tailor fashion apparel. Roping in a famous designer didn’t suit her. She wanted these women bond with their trainers and create fashion wear.
In this journey Amsterdam Fashion Institute become partners with Satara Foundation and send two designers and production managers to oversee the collections twice a year. In Holland, management students worked on positioning the product and doing the marketing.
For the Indian market, Satara Foundation recently announced its collaboration with Clearwater Consulting, a Mumbai-based marketing consultancy firm, which will represent the organisation to create a marketing platform for the products in India.
Clearwater Consulting will provide support to Satara Foundation to successfully showcase their latest collection in the Indian market.
Saurabh Shroff, founder of Clearwater Consulting said, “Satara Foundation is not just an organisation with goodwill, but also a group of highly capable individuals supported by organisations such as the Amsterdam Fashion Institute and Mann Deshi Foundation.”
Moniek has received awards and recognition in Netherlands for her Indian initiative. Since every fashion collection comes with a theme. Satara Fashion has drawn inspiration from khadi cloth which embodies ideas of freedom, autonomy, truth and closeness to nature.
Embroidery forms an integral part of the collection. In every garment there is a Hindi letter is tagged that represents the initials of the woman who made that garment. Customers can follow that sign on their website (satarafashion.com).
Satara Foundation has recently received an award from the United Nations.
