Sun, Sea and Embroidery!
In the heat of an Egyptian summer morning, with a turqoise sea glistening invitingly, I met Mariam, who took me to the Malaika Embroidery School to meet some of the Ladies who do the intricate hand embroidery on the Malaika bedlinen.
The students were a small group of very friendly women, some of whom had small children in tow .
They were attending the school with a single purpose; to learn to embroider to a high enough standard to enable them to work for Malaika.
In this informal setting; with their children playing and the women enjoying each others company with lots of chatter and laughter, they were also learning and practising some very complex embroidery stitches and proudly showed me the samplers they were producing.
Malaika focuses on teaching hand embroidery to local women giving them a chance to learn a valuable skill and an opportunity to achieve some financial independence. Malaika is proudly producing hand embroidered luxury bed linen, delivering a high quality product, whilst empowering the lives of many women and has this at the heart of its business model.
We believe that trade should be fair and only work with like minded manufacturers, people who are passionate about their products but also understand that they carry a social responsibility and have this at the very heart of their business. Malaika is one of those companies and we are very proud to stock their fabulous bedlinen.
Goya Gallagher, a co-founder of Malaika truly believes that "“When you empower a woman, you empower an entire family”....we agree and applaude her efforts!
