Dresses for India

Dresses for India
Kiwi sewers making a difference for disadvantaged girls in India

 

When life gives you scraps – you sew a dress. And that’s just what Carol Harries and her band of volunteer sewers around New Zealand are doing.

 

When Carol heard about young girls in India being picked up on the streets and disappearing into a life of slave labour and possibly worse, it tugged at her heart and she wondered what she could possibly do to help so far away in New Zealand. Carol learned that young girls in India who appear poorly dressed or unkempt are preyed upon as it is often assumed they are orphans or homeless.
Carol owned a fabric and trims store at the time and she was in regular contact with clientele and friends like herself who loved to sew and now they had a purpose. Dresses for India was born in October 2016.

 

Carol teamed up with her sister, Jill, who helped with cutting out the dresses and preparing them for sewing. Together they shipped off bags of ten ready-cut dresses along with trims to volunteer sewers to make up. They got in touch with a youth worker in Calcutta who agreed to facilitate the operation over there and distribute the dresses to girls in need.
Word travelled fast and Carol was overwhelmed by women across the country offering to sew the dresses or offering to donate fabric and trims. Carol would come home to bags of fabric on her doorstep and had no idea where they had come from. Now, having already distributed around 1000 dresses via independent travellers, Carol and the team at Dresses for India are planning a bulk shipment of 3000 dresses.

 

When we heard about the cause, Bed Bath & Beyond offered to foot the bill to freight the dresses to India. Carol told us how Dresses for India not only does good in India but it also enriches the lives of all the women involved in New Zealand. Tack on to that the re-use of unwanted fabric and textiles instead of dumping it in a landfill and we think this is a great cause and Bed Bath & Beyond is beyond proud to support it.

 

If you are interested in Dresses for India and would like to volunteer to sew or donate fabric please contact Carol Harries on 0272494974.

 

 

Carol Harries
Dresses for India