A New Life for Age-Old Sarees

Program:

This FY 2024-25 initiative tackles two problems that don't usually get addressed together: textile waste and limited livelihood options for women from vulnerable backgrounds. Pre-loved sarees and discarded textiles get sorted, classified, stitched and finished by women artisans into new lifestyle products, turning what would otherwise be landfill into income. The year's real milestone was technical: an AI-enabled textile classification system, built on a structured digital database and taxonomy framework, that speeds up how materials get identified and sorted, letting the model scale beyond what manual sorting alone could support.

Measurable Outcomes:

15+ women artisans have been directly engaged, with 60+ people benefiting indirectly. Small in headcount, but a genuine working model for combining circular economy practice, technology and women's economic empowerment in a single enterprise.