Kumbaya Producer Company Limited

Kumbaya empowers marginalised women and people of disability with the art of stitching. It is the brand name for apparel, patchwork home linen and accessories, designed to market specifications and international trends. Located deep in the tribal drylands of Bagli Tehsil, Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh for the last thirty years, Kumbaya has been standing up for the right to women's economic empowerment, seeking to transform and strengthen women's lives through the power of design. Kumbaya is also deeply committed to people of disability, women and men who are unable to contribute manual labour in an agricultural area thus leading to their marginalization and abandonment.

Kumbaya was started in 1994 by 12 Adivasi women and Nivedita Banerji in the village Neemkheda. It is the first women focused livelihood initiative of Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS), one of India's largest grass-roots initiatives for water, livelihood security, and financial inclusion, working with women-led institutions with a membership of over 40,000 women across 14 Self Help Group federations on watershed development, sustainable agriculture, commodity aggregation, livestock, health and nutrition, public education, research and community media in rural Madhya Pradesh.

The unique significance of Kumbaya is that it is based in one of the poorest, most backward, predominantly agrarian rural regions of India, where there were no traditional marketable crafts or any history of manufacturing.

Today over 100 women from marginalized communities are shareholders who own and work in Kumbaya Producer Company Limited, where employment is guaranteed for 300 days a year.

Kumbaya continuously works on skill development and has taught stitching to over 2500 women from 100 villages in the area. These women have been able to use this skill from home to earn money as tailors in the local market. Most of these women had never stitched a garment before. We have also trained women from other organisations in stitching, patchwork, design and business.

Nothing is considered as waste at Kumbaya. From the beginning, since 1994, Kumbaya has believed in carefully creating a system of circularity. We have always sourced fabric responsibly, re-used dead stock, discarded by industrial fabric units, and bought hand woven and other artisanal cotton fabric made by skilled master-craftspeople across the country. We specialize in crafting beautiful patchwork with every bit of waste leftover from our own production, take back and revive unsold stock by stitching it into something else; and try to create sustainable fabric and clothing using waste material from other allied industries as well.

Kumbaya Producer Company Ltd has been selected by the Jury's decision as winner in the Award Category "Best Women Entrepreneurs- Leading Sustainability and Social Impact" of CITI Textile Sustainability Awards 2024.

Kumbaya can be found at retail stores across the country — Ambara Ulsoor and Serenity in Bangalore, MESH in Delhi, Studio Chim in Goa, Craft Circle in Versova Mumbai, Giving Creations in Thane Mumbai, and Jhappi The NGO Store in Mumbai and Goa. Kumbaya is export compliant and works with several designers from different countries as manufacturing partner:

• Labvisby in Sweden
• Woven in the UK
• Alcana in Australia
• Annie G in Australia
• Embrace Body in Australia
• Rani & Reine in Germany
• Zazi Vintage in Amsterdam
• Moi Namaste in Finland
• Pita Oskam in New Zealand
• Weftus in New Zealand
• Naushad Ali in India
• Kosala in India
• Numa in Dubai

Our short documentary film titled, 'The Kumbaya Story' won the tve Global Sustainability Award 2024 at BAFTA under the category — Transforming Society. Watch on YouTube ↗