She believes that “The passion to help weavers came from my own need” and acted as her own catharsis.
Rakhee got separated from her husband after eleven years of marriage. Distraught and broken, she needed a livelihood to sustain and support herself and her two children. And she needed to heal.
Weaving on the other hand is a way of life in Assam and the skill of weaving has been passed on from generation to generation by mothers to their daughters. A weaving loom is what one would find compulsorily in every household of rural Assam. And it is the women, mothers, daughters, grandmothers and aunts who weave in their own household, after their daily chores. Most would wear their woven cloth and some would sell it. The patterns and colours used for weaving are unique and stands for the tribe they belong to and identifies each tribe .
Rakhee saw a great opportunity in this. In an attempt to salvage her own pain she started looking for an outlet. She started touring rural Assam. Travelling pan Assam, Rakhee realised that the weavers she met were mostly tribal young women . She realised that these young women were sacrificing their youth to take care of their siblings, thus missing out on education and any kind of vocational training to earn their own livelihood. These young women became a source of inspiration for Rakhee.
Rakhee, soon started motivating these young women. She realised that they were skilled weavers and could weave intricately, but lacked total exposure of markets and how to use their skills towards weaving commercially. She realized that with guidance and enhancing their existing skills they could start earning their livelihood.
With the objective of production and marketing support to these young women, Mulberry was born in the year 1999. With no financial support, Rakhee started the business with money borrowed from her family. Her prime objective was to provide an holistic and inclusive support to every weaver and make them an equal partner of the Mulberry family.
From being financially bootstrapped,to setting up systems of production in remote villages, she did it all. She trained these young women to produce on time, mange cash flows and delivering the products on time. Gradually Mulberry grew from 10 weavers in 1999 grew to 500 weavers in 2008.
Mulberry symbolises the journey of the weavers(women). Mulberry strongly believes that with design inputs and marketing support the weavers(women) have the capacities to meet the current demands of the market.
Initially, most sales happened through local handloom exhibitions organized by Dastakar but soon they realized that their actual capacity and strength when Mulberry started supplying large orders to Fab India, taking out production from the remotest villages of Assam yet adhering to all the quality standards of a big brand.
Today Mulberry is known as a brand amongst the national craft lovers of India presently providing livelihood to over 300 women weavers in zvillages of Assam . Over the years we have provided direct and indirect income to over 3000 families.
