project KADAM
Let new India arise out of peasants' cottages, grasping the plough, out of huts, cobblers, and sweepers.
~ Swami Vivekanand
Project Kadam is the pilot project of Enactus KNC that aims to systematically empower the Cobbler Community.
This project was started in 2017 and within 2 years of its initiation, it has managed to empower 10 cobbler families, comprising of 23 children.
The project is built on the fundamentals of sustainable development, waste reduction, resource recycling and profitability. This entrepreneurship model focuses on extracting indigenous ideas from the cobblers, creating and experimenting with different trends and using textiles and handicrafts from different states of India thereby portraying diversity in our handcrafted chappals.
The USP of our product is an innovative method of using Denim ensuring cost efficient utilisation. We collect denim through donation drives in colleges, through RWA of different societies and from various other platforms. The laces and embellishments are purchased from local Delhi markets like Karol Bagh and Chandni Chowk post which orders are placed, with our network of cobblers spread across Delhi NCR.
Our business model
Primary Research
Product Development
Building a Network
Product Manufacturing
Market Channel
Feedback
Loop
To ensure sustainability, we are moving towards making this project as indigenous as possible all the while ensuring that the cobblers are involved in the complete line of production and thus they would be able to adopt the project and practise it easily for their income generation.
Very soon we realised that there were no women cobblers and in order to balance this all male occupation we turned towards women stitching pouches from leftover denim. We involved a group of women tailors who created the coordinated designs of chappals and pouches. Thus, Denim worked like a gender equalizer and ensured zero wastage of resources.
Handcrafted chappals of denim are made available through us via The Kadam Shop, which we set up at various intra and inter college events where we make our major sales.
Check out our Instagram page, choose your pick and initiate a kadam!
Project Kadam has been successful in fulfilling six of the sustainable development goals pronounced by the UN, directly and indirectly, such as No poverty, Gender equality, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, and responsible consumption and production.
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