The business seeks to provide these women with employment and helps fund the Atulya Home, an aftercare home for women in Delhi. It began in 2007 with an old scrap of fabric…
Anju* twirled the fabric around and within minutes it had formed a beautiful rose out of the old, discarded piece of cotton. The ends were sewn up and the fabric had been transformed into a flower. Anju was living in Atulya i
n Delhi, a home that was established in 2005 to help women from the sex trade and other abusive situations. In India prostitution is rife and many young women and girls are taken from their villages with the promise to their families that they will be given a good domestic job. However in reality they are often subsequently sold, against their will, into a life of forced prostituition and slavery. Several organisations help to rescue these women and seek to reunite them with their families, if this is considered safe and the families themselves were not apart of the trafficking process. In a situation where the families have been involved, the woman will be found a safe place stay in to recover from the trauma and to be helped to rebuild her life. Atulya was set up as an aftercare for women in this predicament and now seeks to help and look after women who need healing from the effects of trafficking and other difficult and abusive situations. Atulya is an Indian girl’s name and it means without price; unequalled; unparalleled; limitless; immeasurable; unique. The vision of Atulya is to enable women who are in need of emotional healing to find a place of restoration and opportunity to move on in their lives into new beginnings and a place of freedom. The rose that had been created by Anju was shown to Becs a volunteer in the home at the time. Becs had the idea of making the rose into a pretty hairclip and along with Sarah P, who was running the home, worked with some of the women to start a small business selling ‘Atulya’ hairclips and cards. Atulya Roses provides a form of employment and income for some of the more vulnerable women in the home and help sustain the running of the home to enable more women to have a place of safety and restoration.
