Bachhara is a part of the Dreamstarter initiative. Funded by ING DIRECT Australia, Dreamstarter provides support to selected StartSomeGood campaigns to help them reach their fundraising goals. Learn more about the social entrepreneurs
and campaigns they support at ingdirect.com.au/dreamstarter
Our Story
Bachhara was born in the slums of Bangladesh where founder and designer, Amanda Ryan, was helping to run a free of cost school for slum children. With charitable donations running low, Amanda decided to take the future of her student’s families into her
own hands. She started a sewing centre as a social business for the Jaago Foundation School and to also fullfil her desire to create jobs for the children’s mothers who desperately wanted to keep their children enrolled in school rather than the work force.
However without a larger salary and less working hours for the mothers this would never be possible.
What started as a two month volunteer trip to help the children of Bangladesh turned into a lifelong passion to empower the voice and lives of women.
“Most of the women we work with are not in a position of poverty because they are lazy or unmotivated, they are leading theses lives simply because that was the life they were born or forced into.” says Amanda. "When I started the sewing centre I knew I
didnt want our model to be based in micro financing models after seeing the pitfalls of those programs when women could not pay back their money, I also did not want our centre to be a purely charity model where our work was seen as just free money or an easy
ride."
This is when Amanda came up with the idea of creating the centres application process and procedures based on another way. Rather than top down we wanted to see a more circular inclusive approach. Bachhara decided to create a space where the women were trained
in skills, but also provided the much needed emotional support and sense of saftey that all of their personal lives lacked.
Our
Beliefs
- We believe every woman deserves to feel beautiful
- We believe that every woman should have rights and the freedom of choice in her life
- We believe the connection that women create by seeing, hearing and feeling each others stories, is our greatest gift and the most under valued asset in the world
- We believe in social enterprise and pride ourselves on being able to blend business and charity work to create sustainable outcomes for the world.
- And last but certainly not least, we believe that western women have the power and potential to change the world.
“The world will be saved by the Western woman.“
– Dalai Lama, Vancouver Peace Summit
How
We Impact The World
- We create fabulous unique and exotically feminine dresses, that inspire the goddess in every woman.
- We create these dresses with love and hope in the slums of Bangladesh with our women’s sewing circle partners; by doing this we are empowering our producers with the tools to create a brighter future for herself and her family.
- We create connections between women around the world by sharing their stories on Bachhara’s website and social media platforms.
- Our business does everything we do with all of our stakeholders in mind including suppliers, producers, wholesalers, sales assistants and customers. Changing the world and the way things are done does not happen by giving a small percentage of money or
changing one part of our business model. We look at all the things we do wholistically, we see the world through the eyes of a mother who cares for all of her children.
By purchasing Bachhara products you are entering another way of living and another way of thinking about how things can, and ARE being done.
Everything we do comes from a place of looking at how to do things better, more inclusively, and how to benefit more people along the way. We do all of this whilst celebrating the lives of women and by of course looking and feeling fabulous!
Together women WILL and CAN change the world…
