A Service Learning Collaborative to Build a Sustainable Enterprise for Underprivileged Women (SEuW)

Abstract

<p>The goal of this ongoing service-learning project is to step outside the traditional classroom to engage fashion and textile students in a real world production experience, thus learning about the design and manufacturing process and culture through their activities. The skills and knowledge that the students are developing can go way beyond the traditional monetary manufacturing/retail outcome objectives, touching and influencing people's lives with a global sustainable perspective. A mutually beneficial strategic collaborative effort was organized between an international non-governmental organization (NGO), graduate and undergraduate students at a US University, a large multinational company with extensive ties to Indian manufacturing and the US retail market, and a grassroots women's manufacturing group in Jaipur, India. A number of goals were developed to help support a group of poor and disadvantaged women to become self-sufficient and provide for their families' basic needs, through this textiles-apparel service-learning project.</p>