Last August, with your support, we had the chance to launch our project offering young disadvantaged women in Nepal a better future. We started a sewing workshop teaching women how to produce high-quality bags. This was a great opportunity for women to gain skills, earn income, and to build their self-esteem and confidence!

So far, 11 young women have benefited from the workshop - one has become the Production Manager and is managing all the issues concerning materials, equipment, and organization of the work. Three others have been reintegrated outside the center in the community and are now employed in factories or working for themselves. Four new women joined the project during the last few months and are now producing bags and learning how to sew.

In addition to the workshop, we also set up a learning program with a local partner for production of traditional clothes, uniforms, and children’s suits. In addition, we developed a sales network in Nepal and France to distribute the bags. This made approximately $15,000 in 2013! We also launched a new collection of bags this summer.

Get personal

Last May, a potential partner from Kering Company came to Kathamndu. They were in charge of assessing our project and helped us in its development. Their main conclusion sates: “The Planète Enfants and SAXO bags story is brilliant and needs to be told. “

Risks and challenges

There are two main challenges to our project. One is the difficulty for women to find a job after completing the workshop due to the high unemployment levels in the country. We overcame this challenge by finding appropriate partners who could provide employment and by convincing these partners about the added-value of our young sewers. Another challenge is the difficulty for girls involved in prostitution to give up the high income they earn in order to join out workshop, and potentially, earn much less.

What we’ve learned

The first participants in our workshop were not clear about the fact that they needed to move on after they completed their training in order to allow other women to participate. Some of the women, who were there from the beginning of the project, considered themselves as employees, which was not the case. We also learned that it is difficult to recruit new participants as they are looking to earn money quickly, rather than join a long-term training program. We are now providing a reintegration contract with the women that join us so that they are aware of the end of the program and the next steps.

Next steps

The project is continuing! We are about to register the workshop as a social business in order to be able to open a proper production workshop.

Budget

The total amount is in line with the original budget. We spent more on participants’ wages, because we produced more bags than forecasted. We also increased the salary of the production manager to be in line with her responsibilities and commitment.

More information

Beside production of the SAXO bags, we had some external orders which provided work for the women and revenue for the project. In the future, we would like to maintain this balance between external orders and the SAXO bags production.

Further reading

We opened a web site - www.saxonepal.com

Join us on Facebook: saxonepal

And, follow the news of the project and the collection at: www.planete-enfants.org