Social Impact Project for Developing a marketing strategy

How This Works

As part of the TRANSFORM Support Hub, you will learn how to advance your career while getting hands on experience on projects like this one.

Project Description and Impact

Developing a marketing strategy

Project Picture

Silaiwali works with two guiding principles: Ecology and solidarity. Founded in November 2018, we are a social enterprise based in New Delhi that upcycles waste fabric from the garment manufacturing industry to make beautiful rag dolls, home decor and fashion accessories. In manufacturing eco-friendly handicrafts, Silaiwali engages with marginalised Afghan women artisans who are temporally living in India as refugees. The sale of Silaiwali products in the wholesale and retail markets around the globe directly goes into paying the women artisans sustainable, fair wages mandated by the local government.

Silaiwali is a "Guaranteed Fair Trade Organisation" certified by the World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) and works with the United Nations Agency for Refugees, UNHCR.

Though Silaiwali works in a 'for-profit' model, the spirit of the business is social. We work towards a waste-free and equitable planet. It is a pity that despite being in the business for the past years and abundant visibility of our work in the media -- television, print and digital -- we have still not received any funding from any social sector endowment. Silaiwali is completely boot-strapped and struggles to survive with just sales revenue.

We, the co-founders of Silaiwali, come from creative and communications backgrounds. We do not have any marketing expertise to further our business. So far, that is, in the past five years, we have managed by what is common sense. We are in the stage of our enterprise where we need professional help in the marketing area.

Unfortunately, we do not have the funds, nor will our business be ever profitable enough to hire a senior marketing professional. Our idea of running the enterprise is to find sustainable, fair wages and upcycle waste fabric.

Therefore your probono services will be an immense help to pay attention to the all-important marketing department.

Learning Opportunity

Silaiwali is a unique social enterprise. The experteer is requested to view our Instagram handle, by the name of SILAIWALI or our website, www.silaiwali.com, to view all the media testimonials of the exemplary work team Silaiwali has done in a short 5-year period.

The experteer's will experience how a boot-strapped social enterprise has inspired groups of marginalised women hemmed by deep patriarchy to have unshackled themselves to create the brand Silaiwali, which makes handicrafts loved and kept as souvenirs by customers all over the world.