COVID-19 UPDATES - Join Us in Support of Workers

March 31, 2020

We’d like to first of all thank you, all of our customers and clients world-wide, for your support and understanding during these challenging and uncertain times. 

 

Due to COVID-19, our Jaipur shop is temporarily closed.  Our manufacturing and block printing facilities are operational and we are currently taking orders.  Our staff are healthy and practicing social distancing.  We have put in place all required and advised safety precautions to main the health of our team.

Our webshop is fully functional and we are actively filling orders (all of which ship from Chapel Hill, USA).  

Due to the lengthy lockdown late March into early May and continued partial lockdown across many sectors, which has a domino effect on the supply chain, we are experiencing some delays in processing orders which we are working to minimize.

UPDATE from Friday, 21 AUGUST 2020

We have permanently shifted our Jaipur office and (future) shop location to the below address.  We continue to focus all of our energies on production orders.  We are available to work with customers for custom manufacturing orders via email and phone, but unable to work in person for manufacturing orders at this time.

Please see our updated Jaipur address here:

 

For all manufacturing enquiries, please contact shari@meherashaw.com

We thank you for your continued support and understanding during this time.

Keep safe and healthy!

 

UPDATE from Friday 17 April 2020

The Government of India has extended the quarantine until 03 May 2020.  Our staff is all sheltering in place in their homes and is to date all okay.  

We have made several contingency plans and feel optimistic about our ability to resume production as soon as the present situation is resolved.

We will however, be temporarily closing our Bani Park location indefinitely once we resume manufacturing in order to focus all our energies on production.  We will continue to be available to work with customers via email and phone and at our Mansarovar workshop as well as take orders through our webshop.

We thank you for your continued support and understanding during this time.

Keep safe and healthy!

 

 Previously

The Government of India has announced a 21 day mandatory quarantine across India which will continue until the 15th of April .  This includes all non-non-essential businesses. We have been watching the situation closely;  this is a grave situation across every sector in India.  India is a country of over 1.3 billion people, a high percentage of whom live in poverty and for whom, the quarantine brings untold economic hardship and threatens their survival. 

 

Fortunately all our Indian employees are safe at home.  We are paying salaries to our employees during this time to ensure their continued safety and well-being.  We are grateful for the support of our customers and also that our employees are safe.

 

While we are managing so far, we cannot continue to support our employees indefinitely without resuming production.  We hope the situation will resolve soon and have made several contingency plans for improving efficiency and strengthening our teamwork as soon as we are able to return to work.  We will update all our customers with revised/anticipated completion dates once we are able to return to work.

 

We had hoped to be part of the WFTO-Asia’s initiative to make face masks (medical PPEs) for medical personnel during this time due to the world-wide shortage and deeply appreciate WFTO-Asia’s initiative and support.  Unfortunately, we are not able to participate due to unrest on the streets (due to persons not following quarantine mandates) in our area of Jaipur; we feel we must prioritise our employees’ safety and ask that they stay at home for the moment.

 

Given the world-wide nature of this crisis, we have also been looking at long-range options for how to make our business more resilient.  It is a tough time and the unfortunate reality is that marginalised workers are more vulnerable and manufacturing as a whole is vulnerable, particularly in times of additional economic stress. 

 

We are looking at options including:

-producing more ‘necessity’ items, and staple goods as a balance to our garment production

-working for more transparency with clients and asking clients to tell our artisan story

-providing more information to end consumers to help facilitate a deep change in buying habits and perception of value in the fashion industry (please check for updates on this soon! especially with Fashion Revolution week upcoming).

-working on cross-branding opportunities for added visibility

 

We are open to suggestions, opportunities to work together, to offering workshops and lecture/discussions to help educate people about fair trade and the artisan sector.  We sincerely believe that together, we can all ‘be the change’.

#fairtrade #staysafe 

#WeActasOne
#WeSucceedasOne

#FairTradeProtects

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