Origin of Sakhi 

Sakhi is a social enterprise of Life Education Centre (LEC), Auroville, India. After 33 years of training young women in sewing, hand-embroidery, hand-crochet, and life skills, we knew that economic empowerment was fundamental to their lives but far from enough. For the empowerment to be holistic, it had to include all aspects of life - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual with financially rewarding work. At Sakhi, women artisans spend 15% of their daily paid work time in activities that would help the growth of their inner and outer capacities.

Sakhi, the brand, was founded in 2018.

How?

Integrate well-being with livelihood, an innovative, successful business model


Rural women who find jobs are employed with wages but lack access to opportunities that can help enhance their growth and well-being. Sakhi recognizes the women’s resilience, traditional wisdom, and intelligence to learn and acquire new skills. Our model goes beyond economic empowerment. Sakhi is a brand and a nurturing environment where women artisans spend 15% of their daily paid work time in activities that promote integral well-being.

Inspire individuals and communities to discover and nurture their creative potential


In the past, people made things by hand, for themselves, for their families and friends. It was a way of life and culture. With industrialization, production houses started focusing more on profit and less on humanity. We see the effect of this in today’s world where humans have lost their capacities for creativity and the resulting peace and delight that comes with making. At Sakhi, we value nurturing the creative spirit that enriches our inner life, the joy of working with hands and the mindfulness that develops with it. In the Sakhi approach to work, making products and learning to discover oneself through the process of making are inseparable.

Together, we can shift culture

Through our workshops, we offer opportunities to slow down and mindfully work with hands.

Our Workshops

Our Products

  • Inspired by Nature - We are fortunate to be located in Auroville where we are surrounded by joyful, abundant nature. Vast skies, red soil, large trees, flowers, birds, songs, and silence inspire our everyday life and influence the design of our products. 
  • Hand-made with joy - Our products are hand-embroidered and hand-crocheted and carry a joyful elegance.
  • Repurposed and Upcycled - We aim for zero-waste. Our upcycled collection includes products made from used saris, small fabric scraps or dead stock or off-cuts considered not usable by other big commercial houses. These “wastes” are treasures for us and we prevent them from going to the land-fill by repurposing and upcycling them into beautiful, functional products. We want to reduce the problem of pollution from used vehicle tyres that are burnt world-wide, highly polluting the planet. We have a small collection of products made from inner tubes of used tyres. 
  • Eco-Printed - Some of our bags and pouches are made from fabric naturally dyed with herbs and printed with leaves. Each eco-printed Sakhi product is uniquely designed depending on the outcome of the natural print, which is always a mystery!
  • Made in small batches - Sakhi products are not mass-produced. They are made in small batches with the attention required to bring out the beauty and detail of each product. Our repurposed and upcycled products are one of a kind as we thoughtfully combine found objects to make each one of them. 
  • No assembly lines - Sakhi women artisans sew products from start to finish and hence become self-confident in making full garments, bags and other products. Sakhi believes in providing opportunities for realizing full human potential and encourages artisans to learn and become confident of their skills! 
Our products

Identity

The logo of Sakhi symbolizes jungle babbler birds found in the Indian subcontinent.  Popularly called the “Seven sisters”, they are gregarious social birds that forage in groups of six or ten. The women artisans of Sakhi characterize these birds in their sisterhood, looking out for each other with kindness, empathy, solidarity, and sharing - values that we cherish and nourish!