Women on Wings social enterprise partner since June 2020
Greenwear Textiles Private Limited (Greenwear) provides forward linkages and value addition to the cotton & silk yarns produced by rural women using Solar Charkhas (compact spinning ring frame installed at household level which runs on solar energy) that can produce four times more yarn than a manual new model charkha. The drudgery involved is significantly lesser than the manual charkhas and the women who operate the Solar Charkha can carry on their domestic activities while spinning work goes on.
Greenwear was established in March 2019 with a close association with Bhartiya Harit Khadi Gramodaya Sansthan – a KVIC certified society which implemented the pilot project for Ministry of MSME’s flagship scheme known as “Mission Solar Charkha”. Greenwear plays the role of procuring the yarns by women and manufactures fabric and garments, thereby creating a regular source of income for women, weavers and other artisans. Greenwear’s jobholders are spread across following 4 activities: spinning, weaving, tailoring and value addition.
Next to co-creating extra jobs for women in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Greenwear also aims to reduce the pollution and carbon footprint caused by the textile industry. It believes that it can be achieved through decentralization of textile value chain and migrating towards renewable energy resources to generate power for household-based machineries. If only 5% of Indian villages become solar charkha clusters (around 30,000), it can produce 1.8 billion kgs cotton yarn which is almost 50% of India’s current cotton yarn capacity. This will generate livelihood for millions of people who can continue to live in their villages.
Greenwear operates its business from Lucknow, the capital of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The joint goal of Women on Wings and Greenwear is to increase the number of jobs and create livelihood opportunities for women in rural India where Greenwear is working.
