Good Cause Of The Month: The Secret Pillow Project

What is The Secret Pillow Project is about?

The Secret Pillow is a cushion that unfolds into a blanket. It is a handmade and unique craft item and made by women in India. In addition, these women face serious social and economic challenges. They receive training, support, and materials to produce Secret Pillows, therefore from crafting and selling the pillows they earn money. The project works together with charities and NGOs and with their help, the project links to women who want to earn a living but who need help finding work. First of all, the organisations meet with the women, often in community centres, and then they create an environment in which the women can meet, sew together and also support each other. The ultimate goal is for the women to become financially independent. Unfortunately, 80% of the world’s children living in institutions are not there because they don’t have any parents. Quite the opposite: they are there, because they have parents, but their parents cannot afford to feed, clothe and educate them. Secret Projects exists to help reduce this statistic and empower women everywhere. The project began in 2014.

Multifunctional and decorative

Secret Pillows are very multifunctional: from the children’s room to the garden, they can be used to decorate the sofa as they come in a lots of wonderful colours and patterns. They are even great for travel as they double a blanket. Furthermore, Secret Pillows are made out of 100% cotton fabric.

The Really Tiny Secret Pillows

The Really Tiny Secret Pillows are made from scraps of fabric and wadding left over from making a Secret Pillow. As a result, this enables the project to reduce waste, and the makers can produce more products, which consequently equals more income. These are then sold as Christmas tree decoration. So these tiny products can have a huge impact!

Secret Pillow in Silent Valley Purple design, my favourite one

Secret Pillow as a quilt

What is the Secret Sari Dress project is about?

A Secret Sari Dress is a folding wrap beach dress, made from a sari. They are made from vintage saris purchased at some of India’s second hand sari markets. This project benefits young women who are survivors of human trafficking. These women rescued from sexual slavery, also, in some cases thousands of miles away from home. After rescue the young women live in a protected environment whilst their individual cases come to court and a safe passage home is arranged for them. With the help of a successful crowdfunding campaign initiated by existing Secret Pillow customers and The Guardian, in the 2016 project 70 young women were trained and earned a month’s wage from making the dresses. As a result they were able to leave the safe house with some money and a newly learned skill: sewing.

Empowering postcards

Along with the dress, a blank postcard has been sent out. The customers has been asked to write down where they will wear their dresses and return the postcards. The postcards were then given to some of the makers so that they could see where in the world their dresses were sent. They were thrilled to see how far across the globe their products reached and they felt a huge sense of pride and personal satisfaction. They felt empowered.

On the page, you can see a price break down too, for transparency.

Sari made by the Secret Sari Project

The latest project: The Secret Scarf

These gorgeous and fashionable scarfs are the latest project from 2017 September. Each Secret Scarf folds up very neatly and into a matching Secret Projects pouch with zipper.

Secret Scarf and pouches