Empowering women to repurpose soap
to make their communities cleaner, healthier, and safer
FROM WASTE TO TREASURE
Sundara provides women from slum areas and tribal villages with their first formal employment as hygiene ambassadors. These women collect used soap from large hotel chains, preventing it from ending up in landfills. The collected soap is cleaned in our workshops and then redistributed to communities, along with essential hygiene education.
THE PROCESS
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Sundara hires local women to collect used bars of soap from large hotel chains. This provides them with fair-wage livelihoods, lifting them out of poverty and creating stable employment opportunities.
By partnering with major hotels, these women play a vital role in our mission to recycle valuable resources and improve community hygiene.
OUR MOTIVATION
Every day, over 800 children under age 5 die from diarrhoeal ​diseases caused by poor water, sanitation and hygiene.
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In India, nearly half the population lacks basic handwashing facilities, increasing the risk of infectious diseases like pneumonia.
Improved hand hygiene can prevent up to 21% of respiratory infections, leading to healthier communities.
MEET SUGAN
Sugan, a dedicated and resilient woman whose life has been transformed through her work with Sundara. Before joining the team, Sugan faced significant challenges, including financial instability and limited job opportunities. Her journey illustrates how one woman’s empowerment can lead to positive change in her community.
Sundara began in 2013 as a non-profit recycling gently used hotel soap.
For eleven years we worked across India, Uganda and Myanmar, hiring 40 women and providing them with their first ever formal employment.
We recycled over 1.8 million bars of soap, while reaching 200,000 people with intensive hygiene education each year.
We increased rates of hand washing in all of the communities we worked in and taught women how to run their own sustainable soap-recycling businesses.
GROWING OUR IMPACT
We believe that everyone deserves basic hygiene and the opportunity to lead a dignified life. What started with recycling used soap to combat disease has grown into a mission to empower women entrepreneurs and provide critical emergency aid during crises.
Through all of our programs, we’re supporting women and building healthier, more resilient communities where people can thrive.
Throughout our extensive work as a soap-recycling organization, we were awed by how many of the women that we met had transformational ideas on how to improve the health and hygiene of their own communities. However, it became clear that each of these talented entrepreneurs faced significant challenges accessing resources and support.
In 2020 our entire globe came face-to-face with a devastating pandemic that intensified the need for good hygiene practices in every part of the world. We knew that it was time to pivot as an organization. Building on our time helping women run their own soap recycling businesses, we launched RISE.
RISE empowers female entrepreneurs to become leaders in the water, sanitation and hygiene fields. We leverage our expertise to provide the training, mentorship, and seed funding our fellows need in order to establish sustainable businesses that transform their communities.
