Where there is a will

KOCHI: Anywhere in our country, a night stroll reveals how thousands of men and women sleep on deserted verandahs or streets. Be it in a city, or pilgrim site or villages, the earth is their bed and the cold night their quilt.

Entrepreneur Lakshmi Menon, who noticed discarded, leftover clothes from tailoring sites piling up around town, began putting two and two together. “This problem of the surplus is a solution to the first problem. All the various cloth waste from homes and tailoring centres could make convenient bedrolls. These can roll up and serve as a pillow or mattress or quilt to a little child, or trembling elders sleeping outdoors at night,” says Lakshmi. She has lovingly named them Shayya.

The process is very simple, she says. To make a single Shayya bedroll, neither expertise nor huge amounts of money is needed. Just a mind to help and a strong desire to reduce this imbalance. In Kerala alone, tonnes of discarded clothes and fabrics are burnt. The indirect damage of this is irreconcilable. Converting them into an item of comfort for a homeless or traveller sleeping on the streets is a thoughtful way to manage waste and distribute basic necessities to the needy. “Shayya is a socially relevant project which can be carried out as a decentralised model across the world since the raw material and its beneficiaries can be found in any part of the world,” says Lakshmi. “Pure Living is launching this project. This could be a good time pass for retired women with extra time on their hands and an attitude to help,” says Lakshmi. The project is being launched on International Women’s Day.