Para
My Mother & Father
My mom Sudha Mookerjee was a painter, performed violin, sang and was a deeply non secular soul. She was from the Tagore household of Bengal in India and her nice uncle was the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who gave her title and taught her to sing his songs. Besides tradition and etiquette, one of the crucial essential classes my mom taught me was that kindness needs to be a keystone of 1’s life. My father Ajit Mookerjee was an writer, educator, archaeologist, anthropologist and Director of India’s National Crafts Museum in Delhi. He pioneered by writing about Tantric science and philosophy that impressed generations internationally within the fields of artwork and media. My dad and mom’ affect on me in artwork and design from my childhood had been profound and it led me to review exhibition design, then, work with architects in London, earlier than I ventured into clothes and vogue, inspired strongly by Tom Singh, founding father of New Look Retailers.
Wildlife in India and Kenya
Visiting wildlife reserves in India and Kenya because the 1980s has had an indelible affect on my outlook on life. Experiencing and seeing the unbelievable endangered wildlife and tribal heritages in these two international locations helped me to search out my objective: Planet Comes First.
Shafiq
Meeting My Para, My Muse!
I met Para in 1987, which was electrical, once we each labored on the similar firm in London that equipped excessive road shops. Para enlightened me on wildlife, natural meals, world music and artwork. She was the primary particular person to inform me immediately that “Planet Comes First”. As we exchanged our ideas, between aesthetics, social and environmental matters, it turned obvious that, no matter we did collectively, it might be one thing that we actually believed in. In 1996, Para and I arrange our personal garment sourcing firm known as Echo Sourcing in London.
Children of Dhaka
In the early 1990s, throughout my sourcing journeys to Bangladesh, I had an expertise that I shall always remember. I used to journey each day to Narayanganj, a city south of the capital Dhaka, to go to garment manufacturing items and textile mills. Each day I needed to move a municipal dump and see youngsters make a residing from it. The stench 500 meters away contained in the automotive was so sickeningly dangerous that it made me marvel how on earth did they do that. Para and I made a decision to do one thing about it. In April 2000, we fashioned Children’s Hope in Bangladesh which provides complete help to deprived slum youngsters and their households in training, diet, and healthcare. Most of Ninety Percent’s clothes is made at our manufacturing unit and textile mill, Echotex, in Bangladesh. Echotex was constructed on three pillars: Planet People Product.
Within six months of our operation, we had been awarded Bangladesh’s National Environmental Award for 2010. Currently, Echotex is taken into account to be one of many world’s largest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum licensed manufacturing plant. It is the primary textile mill in Bangladesh to be a contributor to Road Map to Zero, Platinum licensed on The Higg Index and a Fair Trade licensed manufacturing unit. This 12 months we’re within the course of of probably changing into the primary textile mill in Bangladesh to have Zero Liquid Discharge, with 96 per cent of our water to be recycled and four per cent to be evaporated.
Shafiq & Para
Experiencing Live eight & Make Poverty History
In 2005 Live eight occurred, Make Poverty History was in full swing and other people had been marching to cut back the Third World Debt. It was a momentous 12 months for us and we started to query how massive companies had been run and the way governments had been intertwined—foyer and sleaze. We felt conventional enterprise fashions had been all about taking and never giving again, both to the planet or its inhabitants. As we solely knew clothes and vogue we began a vogue model that must problem the established order; primarily based on made to final, up to date sustainably sourced merchandise, giving 90 per cent of its distributed income again to the individuals who make the garments and 5 causes that concentrate on social and environmental justice: Big Life Foundation, Brac, Children’s Hope, War Child & Wild Aid.
Meeting Nick Brandt and Big Life Foundation
Nick Brandt is a large inspiration to us, somebody who stopped making music movies to offer his life to doc the ecocide. Meeting him on a number of events and experiencing his astounding, awe-inspiring images that gave us goosebumps. We learnt about his charity, Big Life Foundation, and visited their undertaking in Kenya to see the exceptional work their organisation is doing. Without a substantial amount of funding, Big Life is decreasing poaching of wildlife considerably, we need to do what we will to assist him and this unbelievable trigger.
Brac Founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed
Brac is globally working with over 150m folks and is at present the biggest NGO. Speaking to the good founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed on many events was a priceless privilege. He educated us concerning the imaginative and prescient of difficult the inherent methods by creating alternatives with empowering ladies, males and kids to clutch their future to beat poverty, in opposition to all odds. He as soon as mentioned: “Small is beautiful but without scale there is not much impact”. We have been humbled by Sir Fazle’s inspiration in our lives and it can’t be overstated and has had an unbelievable affect on us.
