little black dress

A Little Black Dress Sends 264 Children to School for a Year

Topics: Culture, Education, Women
Countries: India, United States

Take one basic little black dress (LBD), a cool girl from India, sustainability, and education for underprivileged children… What do they all add up to? The Uniform Project: the brainchild of Sheena Matheiken of New York, who grew up in India.

Sheena vowed to wear the same dress every day for a whole year to show people it's possible to reinvent your basic wardrobe while creating new looks through smart accessorizing. The LBD was mixed and matched with vintage, flea market, eBay, and Etsy.com finds. Additional accessories came in the form of donations from eco-designers and hand-me-downs from fans.

Through the project Sheena promoted her personal passion for sustainability in fashion while also garnering an awareness around education for underprivileged children in India. The Uniform Project has an impressive following of 6,894 fans on its Facebook page, which is just over a year old. The cause has raised $95,090 for the Akanksha Foundation whose mission is to provide “a positive impact on the lives of less privileged children.”

The Akanksha Foundation provides children from India’s slums the same opportunity for quality education as those enrolled in public schools. In a country where it costs an average of $360 to send a child to school for a year, roughly 264 kids can attend a year of school thanks to the funds raised by The Uniform Project. Check out this video to learn more about how The Uniform Project came to be.

The Uniform Project Trailer from The Uniform Project on Vimeo.


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