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These ‘parees’ have big '‘muskaans’ on their faces

Even as global brands are making a foray into Pune’s booming retail sector, there’s a different kind of a parallel retail revolution churning up under a noble concept called ‘Project Muskaan’.

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Even as global brands are making a foray into Pune’s booming retail sector, there’s a different kind of a parallel retail revolution churning up under a noble concept called ‘Project Muskaan’.

Here, you might not come across polished salesgirls selling items in a swanky mall, but what you do have is the ‘Muskaan parees’ (benefactors of the project) selling second-hand clothes for anything between Rs10 and Rs60.

Parul Mehta, a member spearheading the project, said, “The concept of Muskaan is quite simple. We have 18 high-profile women of Pune as our brand ambassadors. Each of them has picked a month of the year as their ‘special’ month. At the beginning of that month, they collect and donate 500 used garments to Muskaan. These clothes are then given to our ‘Muskaan parees’ who belong to economically weaker sections of society.”

The group currently has 20 ‘parees’ and is planning to take this number to 100 during the coming days.

“We have given them basic training on sales and accounting. These women collect the garments from the centre and then go and sell them, for which they are paid a honorarium. The rest of the money will go into administrative expenses as well as to expand the project,” said Mehta.

The social workers involved in the project go to Laxmi Road and other market areas to survey the pricing of these clothes so that they could price it below the cost in order to make it easy for the ‘parees’ to sell them.

Recently, soft-skills trainer Jyoti Gaikwad conducted a training session with the Muskaan women. “Some of these ladies are quite aggressive and sell their garments really quickly while others are a bit shy which is why they face difficulty in selling,” said Monika Trivedi, another member of the project.

To fill this void, Gaikwad will equip these women with marketing and communication skills as well as conduct image building exercises to make them more confident.

But what also makes this initiative special are the high-status brand ambassadors associated with it. Trivedi said, “When we started calling up these affluent women, they were very enthusiastic about the cause. Yes, some were sceptical about whether they would be able to achieve the target of 500 garments; hence many of them are  sharing their ‘special’ month.”

Owner of multi-designer boutique Rudraksh Rasika Wakalkar, who is one of the ambassadors, said, “I think we need more job providers than job seekers. And empowering women will mean lending a helping hand to the family’s income.” No wonder why these ‘parees’ now have big ‘muskaans’ on their faces.

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