About Us Satisfied Customers The Girls who Sew Indian Vignettes

is a Registered Charity 1087903 in England.
It aims to
help disadvantaged young people in India through vocational training and fairly paid employment.
facilitate the understanding and appreciation of other cultures among young children in the West.

EWE collaborates with Oasis India, a charity that works in the slums of Bangalore promoting community health and adult literacy, running nurseries for the under 5s and helping school dropouts. EWE sponsors the tailoring training unit for young women where they also get medical care and attend classes in English, basic computer and life skills. Later EWE employs them in its sewing workshop for two years where they sew all the dolls’ and dressing up outfits. They receive a fair wage and the classes are continued. In many cases these young women are the sole or major breadwinner in the family. They move on to other jobs so newer trainees come into the workshop.

EWE also works with the Mahalir Aran Trust in Dharmapuri, a refuge for destitute women and children. MAT aims to empower the women to become financially independent and reintegrated into society. They handcraft the beautiful Pukka Puppets sets.

A small village enterprise, two hours from Chennai produce the handmade cloth dolls, Priya and Raj and are now working on Chinese dolls. They also hand embroider the waistcoats for the kurta pyjamas.

KRUTI in Chennai is involved in leprosy patient rehabilitation by providing medical care, housing, day care centres and women’s empowerment programs and skills training. EWE supports the rehabilitation work by sourcing some of the kurta pyjama fabric from KRUTI’s weaving workshop.

EWE is continually looking to source fabrics and products from charities that help disadvantaged groups to rise out of the spiral of poverty.

EWE believes that in our multicultural society, it is becoming increasingly important for children to understand and appreciate each other's customs and traditions. Clothes are one visible aspect of culture. So playing with dolls in other costumes makes for familiarity for all children and raises the self esteem of the minority ethnic child, especially in the Nursery or Primary classroom.

EWE markets the ethnic dolls' and dress up clothes produced by these young people in the West, especially to Nursery and Primary Schools in the U.K. All the money raised from the sales is used to support and further the work of enabling disadvantaged young people to get out of the vicious spiral of poverty and onto their feet.

East-West Education Trustees