Social Enterprise
The Pahari Store is a humble beginning to link himalayan based producers to urban marketplaces. We strive to promote traditional handmade products and endow the rural workforce with an equal opportunity thereby creating employment and promoting self reliance.
The products are handmade, yet modern and affordable. We stock a range of beauty products along with natural preserves, pulses, shawls, hand knits and home decor products which are manufactured using sustainable manufacturing techniques.
Snapshot
The name Pahari is derived from Pahar, meaning "mountain", THE PAHARI STORE is a social venture which promotes products that are made by using conventional skills & techniques and essentially hand-based processes across India and essentially from the hills.
Our partners include NGOs and self help groups including Aarohi, Mahila Umang Producer Company (Grassroots), Kumaon Grameen Udyog (Chirag). We also work with a host of entrepreneurs and SMEs spread across the Himalayas.
Our partners work across several areas education, healthcare, sustainable livelihoods, natural resource management, social forestry thereby imparting livelihood skills to people living in the Rural Himalayan region.
Our key mission is to reduce migration to cities by creating sustainable jobs in villages. The sales will help in aiding rural women and men to find viable employment opportunities and help them become self reliant.
Mahila Umang Samiti was set up in 2001 by Grassroots women, to support and facilitate the growth of micro -enterprises. Today over 2500 women in rural Kumaon are engaged in improving the quality of life for their families through the sales of hand knitted woollens, fruit preserves & pickles, natural honey and natural spices.
Kumaun Grameen Udyog (KGU) works with the aim of providing livelihood opportunities for the local community, KGU works with 200 artisans and sources from over 350 small farmers.All profits made by KGU are mandated to go back to the local community. Currently profits from KGU are used to run the CHIRAG school and hospital in the Nainital District in Uttarakhand, India.