Dear Friends of Sari Bari-

Happy fall!!  We’ve been busy on both sides of the globe and are excited to share with you what’s new!

In India we are honored to be working alongside 35 women who have chosen freedom and are the heart of Sari Bari.  We have also recently secured a new building that will allow us to open a second Sari Bari location in the heart of a large red-light district.  May Light push back the darkness as Sari Bari grows!

Here at home we’ve been in the process of transitioning distribution and communication responsibilities to our newest staff member, Kathryn McRitchie, as my family and I will be joining the team in India next week.  We are so thankful to have Kathryn on board!  You can reach her at info@saribari.com.

Finally, we’re very excited to announce that our web store will launch next week, Tuesday, Oct. 14th!  Starting Tuesday you will be able to purchase blankets and bags directly from www.saribari.com (under the blankets and bags tabs) using Google checkout.  We are confident that this will make for a more customer friendly way of purchasing.

Thank you to all of you who have walked with us–purchasing products, cheering us on and praying for us.  You are part of the freedom story!

Many blessings-
Melinda

So we are not very good at maintaining our blog.  For that we are really sorry!  We are going to do better because we want you to know all the exciting things that are happening at Sari Bari.

July

Our staff began inviting women for interviews at Sari Bari.  They went into new areas to invite women who had not yet heard of Sari Bari or the opportunity for new work and a new life.  We had a tremendous response!!

We had some amazing guests and interns help us out this month.  Special thanks to Rosa, Raji, Amey, Leia, Chris, Phileena, Amanda,  and Chad!

August

We had 12 new women start training in August.  They are doing well.  We are so excited.  This almost doubles the number of ladies that we have working at the Primary Production Unit. Pushing our total numbers to over 30 women who now have freedom

We had another guest this month.  Special thanks to Madri from South Africa for her help, encouragement and wonderful gifts for the ladies. Thanks to Madri’s friends and family for the notes and gifts and for sending Madri to us!

September

Wow–still more good news!  5 more ladies started at Sari Bari on September 1.  We have totally run out of space and are desperately searching for a bigger place.  We are  also actively searching in a second red light area to open a second production unit…hoping for the door to open for us on this one!

We are working to get the website to a new level so you can purchase online.  It may not happen before Christmas due to production constraints but there will definitely be an opportunity to buy blankets and bags in time for Christmas.  If you are on our e-mail list, you will receive an e-mail as soon as the next shipment is in the states and ready for distribution (including instructions about how to order).  If you do not already receive Sari Bari e-mail notices, send an e-mail to info@saribari.com to be added to the list.  Also, be sure to add info@saribari.com to your e-mail mailbox so it doesn’t get filtered to your junk mail.

India is about to celebrate Holi. A festival of color and friendship. So we celebrated a little bit early today at Sari Bari. We had a great time as you can see with a little bit of powdered color. The rest of India will celebrate on Friday and Saturday while we take the time off!

Looks like we sold out in 36 hours.  If you want a sari blanket or bag please contact Melinda at melinda@saribari.com to get on the mailing list for the next shipment which will arrive in early to mid april.

A new shipment of blankets arrived in the states this week. Check out the slide show above. They are already selling fast so if you are interested in purchasing a blanket please contact melinda to get on the mailing list. Her email is melinda@saribari.com We will have regular monthly shipments arriving in the states from this point forward so tell your friends!

At the end of January we celebrated the completion of 6 months training for two our ladies.  They were each given an umbrella and a bag…symbols that they are now business women working for Sari Bari.

We took on 5 ladies in december and are looking to take on 5-10 more in April as space allows.  It is amazing to see the opportunities for more women to have freedom as Sari Bari grows.  Thanks to all of you who are supporting our training and those of you who are apart of the freedom stories of all our ladies with your blanket purchases!

Sari Bari celebrated its two year birthday on February 20th with some cake and a little adventure in the Kolkata.  All the staff went out for lunch and went to the movies!  It was a great day for all!  Two ladies also celebrated their two year “freedom” birthday…you see their hands and the hands of the staff that started on that day 2 year ago cutting the cake!

We had our second annual picnic this year and a wonderful time at the beach in Digha! We took all of our full time staff from both units and their families and filled a bus with 52 very happy people.

December

We hired 4 new ladies and they began their training on Decemeber 1. They are doing great! We are learning alot too…one of the ladies is deaf and really has no language skills/ silent or otherwise so we are learning together how to make things work for her.

We celebrated Christmas with 15 ladies and their families. It was a huge party, filled with dancing, a special christmas song, yummy biriyani, and presents for everyone! It was a true family christmas full of hope and new life.

January

We are bringing on 3 more trainees this month. This will absolutely max us out at our current location putting us as 19 women in a primary unit. We have been given a grant to rent a larger space and so we are hopefully about adding another 15 women by mid year.

we are also looking for a master tailor to help get the bags in major production…right now our machine sewing skills are limited! so if you pray, pray for this!

thanks!

Your overwhelming support during the christmas season has been amazing. we could not supply enough product for the demand…this is great and allows us to feel free to continue hiring women and enabling them to have freedom from a life in the sex trade.

But you can get in the on the next batch arriving on the 15th of December and get your blanket before christmas. Email melinda@saribari.com and ask her to put you on the list!!