Since day one, we’ve always been passionate about the craft traditions in Asia. One of our proudest achievements is reviving the hand-block printing process in Rajasthan, at a time when cheaper digital printing threatened to make it obsolete. Hand-block printing is not only an exquisite craft, but it supports whole communities in India, which are thriving today because of our support.
Seeing the difference that supporting craft techniques can make to entire communities led us to establish The Monsoon Accessorize Trust in 1994. Through annual grants and sales fundraisers, we support a range of women’s and children’s education, health and humanitarian projects across the globe.
All in all, we’ve raised over £7 million since we created the Trust to fund these efforts and improve the lives of approximately 240,000 people.
Thank you for your support! For more information on the charity projects we’ve been funding, just keep reading…
One example of our work is the £250,000 we donated to Water Harvest in the last few years. This has enabled them to install roof-rainwater harvesting systems in homes, providing more than 4,200 people in the deserts of North-West India access to safe, clean drinking water.
We, like Christian Aid, believe all children have the right to free, quality education. So for the last three years we’ve been helping them support 227 children from rag-picking communities in Delhi stay healthy and in education. The money we’ve donated has helped provide them with books, stationery and even smartphones and mobile data packages to help maximise attendance, especially during lockdowns. It’s also given over 200 children nutritious meals and clean, safe drinking water every day, which they don’t have access to at home or work.
The money has funded daily classes at a bridge education centre for children who have not been part of the formal education system so they can go on to be enrolled in mainstream schools. In total, 192 children have completed or are continuing to progress through the government school system, which is an amazing achievement.
We’re partnering with Turquoise Mountain for three years to provide children in Afghanistan’s central highlands with pre-primary education and English classes. As part of this project, Turquoise Mountain help these areas create circular economies, where the villages are entirely dependent on the income of the women weavers as the schools allow them to work by taking care of – and educating – their children.
So far, our donation has given over 100 women, girls and boys essential childcare and prep for further education. With the change of regime, this year has been especially challenging, but the school has stayed open, giving refuge.
We’re proud to have a long-standing relationship with Romil Sewa Sansa (formerly the Radico Welfare Centre). Over the time we’ve supported them, we’ve given over 200 scholarships to world-class private schools to give young people in New Delhi access to better opportunities.
On Wear It Pink Day in October we raised enough to fund 1000 hours of cancer research, 1000 free helpline calls or 330 hours of one-to-one support for families and patients. Thank you for shopping with us to support this cause.
In 2022, we continued this partnership to support HIV positive families in Delhi. The money we’ve donated helps to provide affected families with much-needed nutritional, educational, medical and welfare support.
Giving back will always be important to us. To date, The Monsoon Accessorize Trust has raised just over £7 million for over 60 causes across health, education & emergency relief. Our goal is to raise over £1 million over the next three years to do more for the traditional handcraft communities that support much of our production.
