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THE SWAMI SIVANANDA MEMORIAL INSTITUTE

The Swami Sivananda Memorial Institute was founded  in 1964  by  Mrs. K. Varalakshmi Rao and is an independent non-profit society. This charity is known as SSMI.

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Its mission has been to empower women through livelihood; so that women from under-privileged families could become entrepreneurs.

Initially they found a family of block printers in the slums of Delhi and started a block printing workshop, this lead to the launch of SUBHA, printing fabrics for clothes and homeware for the Indian market.      

                           

Since  2016, British designer Sasha Waddell has been working with the SSMI, designing homeware and leisure wear for the international market which has lead to the launch of ROOM 100.

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India has been block printing textiles since at least the 10th century, and by the 18th century it was the rage of Europe. Some of the motifs have never changed over the centuries yet we still love them. 

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All  our fabrics are block printed by hand, and our blocks which make the motifs are hand carved in the traditional manner. and it is the imperfections which makes every piece individual.

SSMI Achievements:

  • Creating Incomes for over 250 people, mostly women.

  • Setting up kitchens in the slums, and employing local women who make 20,000 meals a day, for under privileged women and children.

  • Running a school within the grounds of the SSMI, giving free

    education to more than a thousand children.

  • Producing and marketing under a brand name “SUBHA” - a new dawn for women.

  • Training 200 girls annually in Vocational skills.

  • Working with children with special needs and behavioural problems.

  • Teachers training for non-collegiate girls resident in slums.

  • With  ‘All India Institutes of Medical Sciences’ in two years: achieved 15,000 refractions, 2500 cataract operations; 500 ocular diseases.

  • Set up medical camps in slums: Treating to over 4000 persons annually. 

  • Studies: Condition of women living in slums; life skills for the economically challenged.  

  • Field investigation: Central and state sector schemes on Delivery of nutrition.

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