Sakshi was on staff at the table we set up at the Welham Girls mela on Saturday. Her instructions were to sell candles and calendars and to give every adult a flyer about Rainbow Resale.
She was amazing!
We sold over 300 calendars, almost every packet of candles and no adult passed our table without receiving a leaflet on Rainbow. Of course, Rachna, Sonam and Sarthak helped too!
It started with this guy. Bhagirath Gop and his colleague Dr Vikram Gupta, both Program Officers at the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, came to visit us in August to check out the work of the Foundation and, in particular, the functioning of the Early Intervention Centre.
We think they liked what they saw, but they also thought we could do even more, even better. So they asked us to undertake a review - to look at the EIC project objectively, see what was working, what wasn’t, and to make whatever changes we felt were necessary.
They suggested that we invite an outsider to help us do it - the person we chose doesn’t qulify as that, but she’s tough and strict and she knows what we are capable of. She’s Tara, our guiding star.
We also persuaded Aarti to come back for two days for the discussions and we all cleared our calendars.
I think for all of us it was an opportunity to look at ourselves honestly and critically, to analyze our approach and our achievements without trying to make excuses or offer explanations. For this meeting, we were committed to trying to figure out what was working and what was not.
The answers were sometimes startling, sometimes disturbing, and always provocative. We are engaged in analysis- there is something so exciting about asking questions and being willing to confront the truth about what we are doing. The truth is seldom easy and always involves reconsideration and restructuring of reality. The programs we are so attached to may have to be given up. The ways we do things may need to change. What matters is being open to new ideas and possibilities.
This is for those of you who live close enough to Rainbow Resale to donate your excess, your clutter, your unloved objects yearning to breathe free. . . the “one in, one out” rule can save you from the tyranny of possessions.
Every time you bring something new home, send something old to Rainbow. It’s as simple as the law of gravity or the angle of repose. It’s a physical law of the universe: you can only hold so much stuff in the same space. So if you buy a new suit, you know there’s an old one that should go. If you acquire a new set of dishes, give the old set away. New TV? Use the box to pack the old one.
You’ll have less to dust, less to trip over, less to worry about. We’ll thank you, you’ll thank yourself, and the wealth will be shared. What could be better?
It’s actually happened. The dream we have had of having our own shop in a real market has actually come to pass. Rainbow Resale, Vina Srivastava’s brainchild and pet project of Savita Thapliyal and the whole CVT family, opened its doors today in Sethi Market. We had a small crowd of around fifty people present and the other shopkeepers all joined us for the inaugural ceremony. The children said the school prayer, Savita spoke briefly and Monica’s Mom helped Ashish cut the ribbon. Laddoos, courtesy of Laxmi Sweets, were handed round and everyone streamed into the store to make their first bargain purchases (Sarthak, our newest staff person, handled the transactions with style and pizazz). The shop is adorable, and smartly fitted out with shelves, cupboards and even a small trial room. Our landlord, Rajendra Bansal of PSI, has given us a good rent and today he also offered to pickup our electricity bills for the whole of the first year. And don’t forget - we’ll need a constant stream of donated goods to keep the interest high!
Have you heard about our second-hand shop? It’s a unique concept here in India, though a tried and true one in the West. We call ours Rainbow Resale, and we collect used clothing, books and household items (including, eventually, furniture and appliances) and sell it all at rock-bottom prices. Our customers include daily wage laborers and domestic workers and the response has been phenomenal. So much so that we recently made the decision to shift operations from a corner in Latika Vihar, where we were open only one day a week, to a proper shop front in Sethi Market, near Vasant Vihar. We are renting a space from Rajender Bansal, a PSI staffperson who is giving us a good price, and we will now be open six days a week.
The concept is a new one in India, but we have taken it one step further by staffing it with the trainees from CVT – all young adults with mental disability. Along with their parents and one hired staff person, Rainbow Resale is their project. Go to the CVT on any given day and you’ll find the trainees busy repairing torn garments, stitching buttons on shirts, ironing and folding. At another table, they are making the bags they place customers’ purchases in. It’s a beehive and an assembly line and everyone is motivated and excited about the newest Foundation project.
Manisha and Monica sorting clothes for Rainbow
Bag-Making Assembly Line!
We need donations of all sorts (only high quality stuff please!) and we would love it if you dropped in to shop yourself. Along with all the second-hand bargains, we also stock a full range of Asha Kiran products and homemade pickles and jams.
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