About Pink Namaste

Completing the circle we support social and environmental projects in India. Up to date we have financed tailoring lessons for ladies near Mysore, training sessions in organic farming for tribal people in Karnataka, and have supported the making of an organic garden farm near Mysore.

Currently, we are dedicating a percentage of Pink Namaste's proceeds to supporting a vibrant, well established and growing organisation called ACCORD (Action for Community Organisation, Rehabilitation and Development) ACCORD was born in November 1985 to help the Adivasi community of the Gudalur Valley in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu to take control of their own lives as they were being cheated and exploited and might soon have disappeared off the face of the earth, as is the fate of so many tribal populations worldwide.

We are developing our partnership with ACCORD with a perspective on future collaboration of developing trade and mutually beneficial exchange.

To read more information about
The story of Adivasi Tribal people in a southindian forest becoming self reliant – again!

Q. Is Pink Namaste Fairtrade certified?

Answer from the FLO website:

Why aren’t handicrafts Fairtrade certified?
Fairtrade Certification and its system of minimum pricing were designed initially for commodity products. It is technically difficult to adapt this model of standardized minimum pricing to crafts and other products made by small-scale artisans, which are each unique, made of varied materials and have highly varied production processes and costs. However, FLO is currently working with the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) to explore whether we could work towards a certification programme for these products in the future.

Manufacturing Partners:

Yoga Mat Bags

The yoga mat bags are made by refugees from Sri Lanka who live in camps at Coimbatore and work at small tailoring units. Currently, there are about 65,000 Tamil refugees from the conflict in Sri Lanka who live in 133 camps in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Prior to fleeing to India in the 1980s and 90s most refugee families were agricultural labourers or fishermen. In India, some tailoring training centres have given training to the refugees in order to help meet the needs of camp inhabitants. The income generated by making these Yoga mat bags will go to feed their families and towards the education of their children. Normally they sell their products to local markets. Pink Namaste is giving them an overseas outlet and we are looking forward to creating more work for them.

Garments

The garments are manufactured by Indian women who work in garment units at Tirupur in the state of Tamil Nadu. They units are run according to fair trade standards: no child labour and no middle men involved, thereby giving a sustainable income to the people actually doing the work. The garment units are run to ensure a high standard of manufacture. Pink Namaste would like to bring them more opportunities of working with organic and naturally dyed fabrics.

Yoga Mats
Sticky mats
Our sticky yoga mats are made in Germany. The mats are produced in an environmentally friendly manner, tested for harmful substances and certified at the highest possible standard.

Meets the regulations (REACH) concerning the permitted substances on the European market. The mats are produced without phthalates only!. It can be washed in the machine up to 40° Celsius.

Cork Rubber Mats

The cork rubber mats are produced in China to the highest ecological standards, using 100% natural rubber from Vietnam and 100% natural cork composite from China farmed in a sustainable manner. The cork chips are first processed into cork skin, then composite cork, which is fused with the rubber using pure heat treatment, without any chemical glues or harmful substances.

The mats are REACH certified, which means they contain no harmful chemicals or glues.
(REACH is a regulation of the European Union, adopted to improve the protection of human health and the environment from risks that can be posed by chemicals.)

Blankets:

Our blankets are made in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India according to Fair Trade Standards.

They are 100% organic, from the cotton to the plant colours used for printing. They are made by a village of artisans that have been producing traditional blankets for generations.

Yoga hammock Kits:

The Yoga Hammock Kits are manufactured in China to a High Standard. They do contain artificial fibre to produce and aerial 'silk' cloth that is extremely strong and safe, having passed CE certification for maximum loading caoacity of 250kg.

Creativity and Management Partners

Shilpa Basavaraj

A Creative person at heart, Shilpa has been involved in the field of design and clothing throughout her career. After a few jobs in the apparel, she wanted to pursue her dream of being the catalyst to change in the way we treat the environment. Since 2006 she has been traveling across India and documenting the traditional, environmentally friendly methods of textile manufacturing as well as studying the possibilities of converting them into commercially viable business propositions. On the one hand to benefit the artisans and on the other to reduce the damage being done through conventional manufacturing systems to the environment. She has done her bachelors in fine arts , and masters in Fashion design from National Institute of fashion Design New Delhi. Today Shilpa works with different trusts and organizations to retain age old traditional methods of dyeing and printing in the textile industry, to use recycled fabrics and reduce the carbon footprint to a certain extent, to ensure a fair trade method of manufacturing and provide maximum income to the actual people doing the work.

Sales, Design, Marketing Partners

Kirsten Germann

Kirsten has been a traveling yogini and acupuncturist since 1995, spending many, many months in India amongst other places. During a year long stay in Mysore, South India in 2003, she developed the idea of Pink Namaste with her friend and neighbour Ravi Shankar and began to research possibilities of linking up social and environmental work with business. Since then she has met and worked with many wonderful and different kinds of people to move this idea forward to its current stage. She is continually inspired by the beauty of people, art, yoga and life and is committed to connecting people across the globe in a positive way. She is based in the UK, practising acupuncture and teaching yoga most of the year, and always ready to go on a journey and grow.

Lucy Newport

As a yoga teacher and ambassador for Pink Namaste, I have worked with them now for two years, supporting their cause and working with marketing and promoting. Thank you too for supporting Pink Namaste, I hope you have received your bag and clothing with the same love with which the ladies of India made it.

Kind wishes,

Lucy Newport
Eastbourne Yoga teacher

Diego Barraza

With his newfound enthusiasm for Yoga practice and philosophy, Diego has been instrumental in giving shape to the Pink Namaste vision. As documentary filmmaker and international development consultant, he has been happy to support the design and communication process that enable initiatives like Pink Namaste to catalyse change in a new global and more humane society.

Amalia Ona

Amalia is the youngest member of our crew. She has been helping out with naming our Yoga bags and some of our designs and modelling! She is featured in the documentary Part & Parcel. Guess what her favourite colour is?...Pink

Charitable work:

Currently, :we are dedicating a percentage of Pink Namaste's proceeds to ACCORD (Action for Community Organisation, Rehabilitation and Development) who are working for human rights, health, education, housing and culture with the Adivasi Tribal communities in Tamil Nadu. Their mission is to redesign the systems necessary  to help the Adivasi communities cope with the onslaught of modernity on their way of life and to prepare them to emerge from their forest retreats with their heads held high, proud of their culture and their people.

We are developing our partnership with ACCORD with a perspective on future collaboration of developing trade and mutually beneficial exchange.

Our friends, supporters and wholesale partners

Please Contact us for wholesale prices, we cater to small studios and independently run yoga boutiques.