Sirohi by Skilled Samaritan Impact Report 2020

SIROHI

BY SKILLED SAMARITAN FOUNDATION

IMPACT REPORT 2020-21

SIROHI

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SSF

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 Founders Note 04 Our Story 05 Journey and Beyond 07 Sirohi 09 2020 Financials 11 Design and Impact Fellowship 14 Impact Metrics 15 Theory of Change 16 The Team 17 Awards, Grants & Partnerships

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A NOTE FROM GAURI Hello, I am writing to thank you for supporting our cause, and to share this note with you as a gentle reminder—that we are guests of this earth and not its masters.

At various points of time in our lives, we have sought purpose, questioned our frustrations, and embraced our passions. My story is no different from yours.

My parents sent me to boarding school when I was 6 years old. While this made me fiercely independent, I couldn’t help but notice my mother’s financial and emotional dependence on my father. Growing up, this often bothered me and left me feeling helpless.

This continues to be the plight of women from rural and urban areas across the globe due to a lack of income opportunities and socio-economic barriers. While we can’t break the rules, we are here to bend them. SIROHI is my vision of a world where women from across the globe use their existing skills to help craft functional products with strong sustainable values while creating steady income opportunities for themselves. And that’s not all. Each SIROHI product is made from selvages of waste textiles, plastics, or natural fibres, using the charpoy style of weaving.

Today, my mother heads operations for SIROHI and is working with 100 other women. Believe me when I say this—they’re a bunch of firebrands!

We aim to inspire you to work towards a simpler, greener, and kinder life, and we hope that we continue receiving your support in this journey to take SIROHI across the globe.

Gauri Gopal Malik WOMAN, WIFE, DAUGHTER, FRIEND, CEO, AND TO-BE-MOTHER

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VISION To create a world where women from marginalised communities can use their existing skills in craft to earn dignified incomes via financial independence and break socio-economic barriers to live as equals in their communities.

MISSION Empowering women from marginalised communities with craft skills to seek sufficient income opportunities to build economically independent livelihoods by providing means to financial inclusion and quality design and digital training relevant to the market of today.

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PILLARS OF SIROHI

Women Empowerment

Handicraft Revival

Waste Upclycing

OUR STORY In 2012, the Skilled Samaritan Foundation launched a solar lighting project in Sirohi, an Arcadian village in rural Haryana. After observing and interacting with the members of the Sirohian community for almost half a decade, we realized the opportunity gap in our rural communities – people have immense talent but lack the chance and modern-day skills to showcase it.

Charmed by the people of this village, we launched our first project ‘Sirohi’ - our weapon to empower rural artisans. The brand began its operations with a single woman – Gauhar Fatma in June 2019 in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Today, it is home to 250+ women.

SIROHI is a sustainable luxury brand that advocates a slow and simple lifestyle based on the values of Indian heritage and culture. Our home & lifestyle products are hand-woven by skilled women artisans to bring the beauty of the outdoors - indoors. The products are made from waste & salvaged materials locally generated in the region, upcycling massive amounts of waste and reducing CO2 emissions.

THE SKILL LAB is a first of a kind six-month design and impact fellowship connecting designers to local artisans. Structured in a manner to upskill both fellows and artisans in the latest handicraft design techniques, the Skill Lab at its heart functions as an artisan-centric program to educate artisans with current market knowledge, financial literacy, and digital skills empowering them to seek economic opportunities and gain financial independence.

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JOURNEY Inception

Started production with 2 rural artisans, 37 SKUs Launched B2C website - Sirohi.org in Oct 2019 Showcased work at Lakme Fashion Week – Circular Design Challenge Participated in 25+ offline exhibitions Selected for London Craft Week (cancelled due to the pandemic)

2.5

Transition to tech-based design approach

Q1 2020

Led a crowdfunding campaign on Milaap for Covid-19 relief Trained 20 master craftswomen to use digital tools Hit 10K social media followers

Q2 2020

Launched B2B wholesale program Listed on India’s top 5 marketplaces Introduced online Charpoy Training Sessions

2.5

Q3 2020

Founder titled UN Generation Equality Champion 250 artisans enrolled on SSF platform Won India’s Best Design Award by Pool Magazine

Q4 2020

Brand partnership with Uniqlo Opened B2C channel to international market Selected for Nudge Foundation Cohort 2021 Laid the foundation for SSF Design Foundation

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Q1 2021 Registered Sirohi Handicrafts Pvt. Ltd. as an SPV Started international shipping on website Certified by CraftMark as a genuine handicraft brand Selected for Wadhwani Foundation’s VFT Accelerator Program Granted fund from Sfurti scheme of Ministry of Textile and Handlooms.

BEYOND In 2021, our primary focus is to launch a pilot of The Skill Lab by year-end - due to the pandemic, this year the program would be conducted in a virtual set-up Increase offline presence in the form of flagship stores in Tier 1 cities and store partnerships in Tier 2 cities Put Sirohi on the global map and actuate the recognition of the talent of Indian rural artisans on an international level

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SIROHI Sirohi provides income opportunities to rural artisans, by integrating technology and design, to make well-designed functional home & lifestyle products - facilitating 250+ women to be a part of online and offline marketplaces of urban India. Through its platform and other initiatives such as Banking Independence, Artisan & Aadhaar card enrollment, Sirohi aims to holistically empower these women Each Sirohi product is made by rural artisans using waste materials regionally collected.

30% from plastic waste

70% from natural materials and textile waste

ACTIVE IN FIVE VILLAGES

SOURCE OF RAW MATERIALS

Budhina Khurd Twirl Store,Caluctta

Sujroo

Laddahwala

Non-profit organization in Jaisalmer

Budhina Kalan

Bhagwanpur Sirohi cluster in Bhagwanpur

Successfully able to include rural artisans in the digital economy despite 6-months of lockdown in 2020, leading to a revenue of almost INR 75,00,000 from inception till date, for the brand and an average monthly income of Rs. 5000 per active artisan.

CONTRIBUTION TO 5.2 FAMILY MEMBERS

+

=

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER TO 4.5 DEPENDENTS

2675 LIVES IMPACTED AND JOB CREATION FOR 500 INDIVIDUALS SIROHI

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BUSINESS MODEL Mobilising women skilled in crafts via Gram Panchayats & partnerships

Artisans enrolment: Issuing IDs, opening bank accounts & offline trainings for women

Designers use a tech-centric approach to make functional products

Bi-weekly raw materials and finished goods supply to villages + centralised fulfilment & quality check Artisans collaborate with designers using video support to make products

Finished products are sold to urbane buyers via online marketplaces and B2B

Expansion of operations through replicating model in other villages across India to empower greatest number of rural artisans.

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2020 Financials SSF has currently received grants from the following organizations for its operations and activities:

Marketing 8% Misc.

15%

Wages 35%

1) Milaap 2) The Nudge Foundation

Training 17%

3) Amex Raw Materials 25%

4) NEST

Figure 1: Grant utilization

30 lakhs

Exports Online Marketplaces 2.3% 13.1%

Customised 3%

20 lakhs Website 46.5%

10 lakhs

0 lakhs

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

B2B 35.4%

Figure 3: FY Sales Breakdown

Figure 2: Quarterly sales

Despite the pandemic, we successfully grew our online and offline sales channels in 2020.

We launched our products across 12 market platforms and saw positive q-o-q growth from both the website and market platforms.

In Q2 2020, we started B2B collaborations and in subsequent quarters, saw significant interest coming from retail chains and corporate.

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THE SKILL LAB The Skill Lab is an extension of our successful pilot at Sirohi to further our impact across craft clusters in India. The program is formulated as a Design and Impact Fellowship - wherein, 10 designers (Fellows) are embedded in 5 craft clusters in India to provide artisans with holistic support on aspects such as design development, digital tools, and insights on the online/offline market linkages.

For the artisans: Gain the necessary

For the fellows: Receive a unique

tools required to be part of India’s

opportunity to explore the

growing digital economy as

handicraft world through the lens

potential micro-entrepreneurs or

of the artisan and build a product

income opportunity seekers.

portfolio relevant to the ‘market of today’.

Figure 4: Skill Lab Targeted Villages SIROHI

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Through the Fellowship program, we will be directly training and supporting

=

x

5.2 FAMILY MEMBERS

500 WOMEN PER YEAR

=

x 1 ARTISAN

This ripples the impact to over 2600 PEOPLE IN 6 MONTHS

The knowledge and skills (weaving, design, digital tools) transfer spreads to over 2250 PEOPLE

4.5 PEOPLE

Artisans will also be supporting additional jobs (materials sourcing, welders, logistics, packaging, etc.) in their local economy.

=

x 500 ARTISANS

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SUPPORTING 1 ADDITIONAL JOB

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500 NEW JOBS CREATED

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HOW IT WORKS The fellowship is broadly divided into 6 phases of intervention and training.

01

Bank Account and Aadhaar Card Enrollment

02 Market and Design Research

To identify potential product ideas, market opportunities, and raw material sources

03

Ideation & Conceptualisation

To collaboratively design products based on current market trends and train artisans in design development

04 Prototyping and Execution To upgrade artisans’ craft skills while prototyping and executing products

Pricing and Cataloguing

05

To train artisans on bookkeeping, pricing, and digital tools

06 Market Linkages To connect artisans to online and offline marketplaces SIROHI

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IMPACT METRICS Women at Sirohi

Artisan average monthly income for the FY

250

250

₹3,300 2,750+

200 150 100

products handcrafted in the FY with a forecasted increase to 50,000 by 2025

62 50 0

Active

Enrolled

Work with rural artisans across 5 villages Target: 50 villages by 2025

450

Waste Reduction 30,000

27,500

20,000

15,000

SKUs & monthly new collection launches

10,000

0

Production Capacity

10,000 units/month

250 X 2 (products/day capacity) X 20 working days Ripple Effect of Impact

kgs of textile

kgs of plastic

250+

Bank Accounts Opened

Increase in family Women in local Reduced Child Reduction in + disposable + + leadership Marriages Crime Rate incomes positions

*An avg. SSF product uses 8 kgs of textile waste and 10 kgs of plastic waste SIROHI

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THEORY OF CHANGE Women with craft skills from marginalised communities in rural India become financially independent and have an economically sustainable livelihood

Financial upliftment

Sufficient income opportunities

Financial inclusion

Direct market linkage via Sirohi.org

Aadhaar card enrollment

Training on different product SKUs and craft techniques

SSF Long Term Goal BY

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IMPACT

Digital education on relevant websites, apps etc.

Design skill upgradation as per market of today

Online /offline market linkages via fellowship

Opening of independent bank accounts

SIROHI

Entrepreneurial mindset/ Shift in mindset

Technical skill enhancement

REPORT

Business skills development workshops

Training on cataloguing

Knowledgetransfer on design development

The Skill Lab 2020-21

Development of business acumen

Training on pricing and bookkeeping

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THE TEAM

GAURI GOPAL Founder & Director

NEETI GOPAL Head of Operations

GORIKA SINGLA Finance & Operations Head

TANAYA RANADE Marketing & Communications Head

BITOTI BHAUMIK Merchandiser

SHAGUN SWARUP Sales & Partnerships Head

ARUSHI BHARDWAJ Account Manager

AKSHINA BHARGAVA Impact Associate

KASHISH JANIANI Design Fellowship - Program Manager

PRAGYA AGARWAL Design Intern SIROHI

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HANISHA VASWANI Advisor: UN Women REPORT

2020-21

GOPICHAND KATRAGADDA Advisor: Nudge Foundation PAGE

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AWARDS

MARKET PLATFORMS

PARTNERSHIPS

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We’re all about the boss

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stories, not the sob ones.