Sakhi is our social entrepreneurial venture at LEC. The brand captures warmth, creativity and beauty, values we cherish here at LEC. Its meaning — friend in many Indian languages — is the heart of our work and the message our creations wish to extend to you.

All Sakhi creations are hand-made by women enrolled at LEC who have developed their skills through our vocational training programs. While we have offered tailoring and embroidery training since we opened our doors, we only recently started selling our creations and returning the profits back to our students. While our students have always loved this creative aspect of LEC, the development of a social enterprise has been important to those who want to support themselves and their families financially. 

Sakhi is the culmination of our holistic approach to empowerment at LEC. It’s a process that seeks an alternative to our world’s view of work. We expect our students to bring themselves to the studio and for their work to reflect who they are. We see production as a means and not an end — in the process of making beautiful items, we take time to reflect on our work and offer feedback to each other. Sakhi is also an opportunity for our students to simply express themselves. There’s so much joy that goes into a Sakhi design, from the excitement in a beautiful new fabric to the pride in a perfect stitch. We hope that joy finds its way to you as well.

You can find our Sakhi creations at Anjali, located in the Auroville Visitor’s Centre. Anjali is dedicated to offering products made by organizations with SEDAB (Sustainable Enterprise Development in the Auroville Bioregion) programs. Directly next door to Anjali is the Upcycling Studio, which is home some of our upcylced products.
Both are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We are also excited to expand our offerings with Sakhi through collaborating with Auroville units and other organizations. Recently, we created bags for Camp Soleil. Please contact us if you are interested in including the message of Sakhi in your next event or organization.