This NGO bats for Sri Lankan refugee women
City-based Sri Lankan filmmaker and activist Poongkothai Chandrahasan has started a social enterprise called Serendip to empower and generate livelihood opportunities for Sri Lankan refugees living in Tamil Nadu. Coming from an illustrious political family from Sri Lanka, she says, “There are around 64,000 Sri Lankan refugees in government-run refugee camps across Tamil Nadu. I have been working with my father’s NGO Offer for the past few years. One of the programs I had pioneered at the NGO was a TOMS Giving Partnership. Through the many years of partnership with TOMS we have distributed almost one million pairs of school shoes to children in government schools in India. In this journey of partnership with TOMS, I realised that a for-profit company can make a huge contribution to the less fortunate. That’s when I started learning more about the concept and impact of social enterprise. I’ve been working to help marginalised communities for more than 17 years, and I’ve regrettably come to see that aid is drying up. Setting up a for-profit social enterprise, where we train our women to make sustainably crafted products and utilising those profits to empower and educate the vulnerable women and children seemed the best way forward because today it’s all about sustainability. That’s how Serendip boutique social enterprise was born,” says Poongkothai. The core idea of Serendip was to generate livelihood opportunities for the Sri Lankan refugee communities living in rural India.
“We are training Sri Lankan refugee women and vulnerable village women in Tamil Nadu not only to make ethical and exquisite jewellery but also activities like tailoring, candlemaking and so on. Serendip boutique that is based in Chennai has certain core principles that we believe in and follow. We wanted to alleviate poverty and this is achieved through livelihood training and income generation. The products at Serendip are made under fair wages. When a person buys the products at a fair price it helps generate employment for the women in marginalised communities. The proceeds received will go back to the community in the form of funding for entrepreneurial training to women groups as well as funding our after school tuition centers in TN villages. Not only does this help the vulnerable community, but it also creates a path of giving back to host communities, which the Sri Lankan refugees are doing through Serendip,” she shares.