Vulnerable Women
We like to call it Playing for Good Relations. 25% of the profits from each game go directly to projects that help create right human relations - especially in areas where joy, comfort and peaceful coexistence aren’t a given. Furthermore part of each game is produced by vulnerable women living on the border between Bangladesh and India.
By sewing game bags and making Prop-cords, the women get support for food, shelter and education for their children. The game is produced from recycled materials or sustainable materials. Right human relations are our main focus - but another is to take care of Mother Earth!
Great Progress
The production in West Bengali is being reinforced all the time. The women have slowly started to come up with new, innovative ideas to optimize and utilise the production. Each day, they are getting still more involved, and now consider themselves a vital part of the PlayProp Team, not just employees. The women have given all their projects a name and they’ve dubbed the bags the games come in “Peace Bags” - because the game creates right human relations between people.
We Care
A major part of the women working on the Prop project come from a life in prostitution, are victims of rape in the family, abuse, violence or have been sold to trafficking. They are vulnerable and a lot of them suffer from physical and psychological damage. Some of the women - many of them mothers - are still in environments where they are abused and beaten. Being part of the Prop project gives them a respite where they are met with care and concern. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, they feel a new sense of self-worth and know that they deserve to be treated well.
Training
The women in the project undergo a 9-month course, organized according to how much they can handle at one time. Here they learn to sew by hand, operate the sewing machines purchased for the project and be part of a group where there is space to care for all. The project emphasizes that everyone should participate as much as possible. The long-term plan is for PlayProp to give the women we work with a qualification they can use outside of our project, to help them reach their potentials to become supervisors and mentors for new employees.
Better Living Conditions
Being newly employed with the Prop project gives women hope for a better future for themselves and their children. These women's children had not been in school because almost no public schools accept untouchables - the children of marginalized women. With the new wages these women earn, they have the opportunity to send their children to school, afford a better place to live and maybe even leave a violent husband.