Participate in CNN’s #MyFreedomDay
Join the movement and help students and teachers across the country bring awareness to modern day slavery.
In 2005, Sudara* founder Shannon Keith took a trip to India and saw the expanse of forced prostitution in the country's red light areas.
Shannon returned home and gathered friends to help do something about it. The team knew that without safe, steady employment, these women stood little chance of surviving outside of the brothels. They identified a group of like-minded partners in India who were compelled to work together with any women looking for a way out of the Red Light Districts. Together, the team created a simple pattern that could be used to teach anyone wanting to learn how to sew.
In 2006, Sudara hired the first six employees in their first-ever sewing center partnership and began teaching each woman the skills needed to become seamstresses, and our first pair of PUNJAMMIES™ loungewear was produced. Stitch by stitch, the women gained confidence not only in their newly found trade, but also in their renewed hope and freedom. Since that time, our relationships have grown into multiple sewing center partnerships and hundreds of women gaining new communities and safe places to work and heal.
*prior to 2015, known as International Princess™ Project