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Enactus, the social entrepreneurship society run by students of IIT-Ropar has been selected for the Enactus India National Symposium and Competition (ENSC) 2019 after qualifying the online rounds. The IIT, Ropar team having 35 UG students will compete with other selected teams from business and management colleges from all over the country.
The social entrepreneurship venture spearheaded by the Enactus team that got them recognition is called Vastra. Under this project, the students identified two entrepreneurs who were collecting old used clothes and sold those to the needy after mending. Adding the philanthropic angle of seeking donation of used clothes from different areas in and around Ropar, Enactus teammentored Ashok Kumar (35) and Vishal (23) and helped them in sourcing used clothes which they repaired and mended and sold to the poor and less privileged at minimum cost.
Several clothes donation camps were organised by the students under project Vastra and the two entrepreneurs were taught the basic business skills so that they can keep this project running. “Clothes are sourced from different donation camps and sites. Our entrepreneurs then store these in a warehouse and segregate these in various categories depending on their condition. Then they repair, wash, pack and re-sell these at cheap prices in slums etc”, said Anmol Rattan, Head of Technical operations, Team Enactus. Clothes in bad condition are recycled and turned into high-quality carpets and blankets. “For this we are now collaborating with a group of women in a village and are teaching them the basic required skills, this will be in practice in coming one month”, he added.
Vastra has been active for almost 1.5 years and has impacted thousands of lives by selling around 1,000 clothes in 2-3 camps in Ropar (Punjab) and in Kullu ( HP).
“ Now we are expanding digitally to cities like Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Delhi through our e-commerce platform to buy-sell old clothes at a click on your phone”, says Anmol. — TNS
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