Asian engineer seeks to empower women with low-cost devices
WASHING MACHINES WILL BE SUPPLIED TO COMMUNITIES IN INDIA
AN ENGINEER’S initiative to help his Indian friend with her chore of hand-washing clothes has now transformed into a mission to change the lives of millions of women in developing countries.
London-based Navjot Sawhney set up Washing Machine Project in 2018, when he came up with the idea of a hand-cranked machine, which is both low in cost and does not require electricity. His aim was to ease the lives of lesser privileged women in developing countries where both money and electricity are scarce.
Sawhney’s unique machine is “robust, simple to use and easily repairable”, he said. It has been tested in countries around the world, including refugee camps in Iraq, and is getting a “phenomenal” response.
The engineer is now set to supply his innovative, low-cost and off-grid washing machines to India, Iraq, Lebanon and Kenya.
Sawhney told Eastern Eye he left a successful career at a leading appliance-making company in London because he got fed up with making “£500-£600 products for rich people who already have everything they need”.’
After working for more than three years, he took a sabbatical and travelled to India to work on making “clean and efficient cookstoves”.
During his stay in a remote place in Tamil Nadu state, he realised how hand-washing clothes was a timeconsuming and tedious chore for women, and that it also was an obstacle to both their wellbeing and livelihood.
“My neighbour Divya, a young mother of two, was a qualified woman who wanted to work, but didn’t have time as she used to spend hours doing back-breaking work scrubbing each piece of cloth,” Sawhney told Eastern Eye.
“Observing her every day really inspired me to come up with a low-cost product for women like her. That’s how I came up with this idea of washing machines that save time, water, electricity and effort for people like Divya around the world,” he added.
Named Divya after Sawhney’s friend, the off-grid machine can be used for washing as well as spindrying clothes.
“Being born and brought up in London, I took everyday problems for granted,” Sawhney said.
“Unfortunately, 70 per cent of the world’s population don’t have access to electric washing machines. Handwashing clothes using cold water
revealed he was raised by his mother after he lost his father when he was just seven.
“I knew from a very young age the importance of women and women empowerment,” Sawhney said.
“I was always very sympathetic towards displaced people because my father and my grandparents had to flee during the India-Pakistan Partition. All this really shaped me as a young person growing up in London.
“Selfless service and helping the community have been ingrained in me from a very young age.”
He aims to provide at least 7,500 machines to disadvantaged families and communities in the next few months.
“Over the last two and-a-half years, we have partnered with the United Nations and Oxfam and lately, with Electrocomponents,” he added.
Sawhney hopes to collaborate with more organisations to provide his product in villages and towns across India and other developing countries.
“We want to become an industry-leading, humanitarian-based design company by making off-the-grid air-conditioning, refrigeration and afterwards, lighting – the kinds of innovations that will completely
transform people’s lives,” he said.