Made with mums in mind: A Q&A with Khushi Kantha’s Laura Rana
16/3/2022
Motherhood is a big part of Laura Rana’s world. She’s built a brand inspired by and supporting mothers, while raising her own twin toddlers.
Khushi Kantha’s story started in Bangladesh, where Laura lived on and off for over a decade. It’s here their beautiful, versatile baby blankets in the country’s classic kantha style are hand-stitched by local women. The brand’s partnership with their artisans celebrates and preserves traditional skills as well as providing sustainable, fair employment that uplifts women.
In the lead up to Mother’s Day, we found a gap in Laura’s busy diary to catch up about launching Khushi Kantha as a new mum, the impact of their blankets and the fellow social enterprise founders who inspire her.
You’ve lived in Bangladesh on and off since 2009. What took you to the country and kept you there?
I first moved to Bangladesh to work for a donor-funded poverty alleviation programme. I fell in love with the country, and its people.
Time and time again, I’ve been amazed by the resilience and generosity of Bangladeshi mothers living below the poverty line.
For example, I spent the first half of my pregnancy working on the humanitarian response to the Rohingya refugee crisis. When getting to know some mothers from the host communities, and understanding how the arrival of hundreds and thousands of refugees was impacting their lives, I was prepared for animosity. Instead, I was overwhelmed by their compassion.
When I arrived at the home of one mother, despite struggling to provide for her own children, she told me she had shared some of her vegetables with the refugees, as she had heard that children were not being provided with enough during food distributions in the camps.
My many years of experience of working with struggling communities in Bangladesh has led me to passionately believe the most effective way to create opportunities for mothers to generate sustainable incomes – and ultimately break the transfer of poverty from one generation to the next – is through social enterprise.
It seems like motherhood inspired the launch of Khushi Kantha in more ways than one! Can you tell us about how the brand came to be?
I was inspired to start Khushi Kantha by the birth of my half-British, half-Bangladeshi twin daughters and my long-standing dream to use everything I’ve learned from my experiences in Bangladesh to support other mothers, whose position I could easily be in myself if circumstances were different.
When my girls were born, they were gifted a large collection of traditional Bengali “kantha” blankets. I was a bit overwhelmed to receive so many, and wondered what we were going to do with them all!
However, I quickly understand that they could be used for pretty much every task on my daily parenting to-do list – from functioning as a breastfeeding cover, a sunshade, a mini playmat, or a pram liner, to serving as a makeshift changing mat when the need arose!
Their bright colours and traditional kantha stitching meant they were drawing compliments wherever we went.
I realised there could be a market for them…and the idea for ‘Khushi Kantha’ was born!
For anyone who’s unfamiliar, can you explain what a kantha blanket is and how yours are made?
Kantha is the tradition of repurposing old cotton saris to create ultra-soft, multi-layered blankets, especially for babies, which are embroidered with a distinctive stitch known as kantha stitch.
The word kantha translates as stitched cloth, but it can also simply mean blanket….so “Khushi Kantha” = “Happy Blanket.”
We’re regenerating the traditional technique to meet global production safety standards, while retaining the principles of reclaim-repurpose-reuse and celebrating Bangladesh’s rich textiles heritage.
Our blankets are created from four layers of 100% cotton fabric, which has all been individually safety tested (in addition to the overall product safety testing we’ve done). The outside layers are made from traditional handloom fabric, which is hand-dyed using Oeko-Tek Passport certified dyes, and we have partnered with sustainably minded members of the Bangladeshi garments industry to breathe new life into what’s known as “deadstock” cotton fabric, by upcycling it as the inside layers of our blankets.
It’s really important to create connections between the mothers who make the blankets and the mothers who receive them. Each of our blankets features the hand-embroidered name of the mother who made it. Her individual photo and story also features on the packaging inserts that accompany our blankets, alongside the reusable cotton bags handcrafted from vintage cotton saris that they come wrapped in.
What impact has Khushi Kantha had on the makers you work with so far?
I’m currently working on our first ever Impact Report.
Our impact measurement system combines the use of internationally validated measures – like the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale – with a participatory approach, which means that it is the mothers we partner with who are the ones defining “empowerment” in a way that is meaningful for them.
For example, Kakoli (who is the mother of two sons, Sonjoy and Sajib) views empowerment as “being able to support my family, and increasing my dignity within my community.”
Anufa is 36 and a single mother to 11 year old Touhid and sole carer to her elderly mother. She had been struggling to find any work, especially due to the stigma surrounding her separation from her husband. Anufa feels that “Khushi Kantha is a ray of hope during my helpless time.”
We ask each mother what their number one dream is for themselves, their children, their families and their communities. And we will be following their progress in achieving these dreams, and understanding how our partnership has contributed.
We’re still at the very early stages of our journey, but so far I can share that our first collection of Happy Blankets created 1,862 hours of dignified work for the mothers we partner with, whose monthly incomes have increased by up to 950% compared to when they first started working with us.
This has been particularly important at a time when the community is struggling more than ever, due to the impacts of the pandemic. For example, through Sunati partnering with Khushi Kantha, her family were able to increase their monthly household income by over 20%, despite her husband’s earnings as a daily labourer being reduced by over two-thirds.
You launched the business during the pandemic not long after having your twin girls. What have been the biggest challenges along the way?
I actually started working on Khushi Kantha when the girls were just three months old. I couldn’t believe it when I was offered a place on the prestigious Cambridge Social Ventures incubator, after rocking up in Cambridge complete with portable breast-pump and seriously limited ability to string a sentence together due to next level sleep deprivation!
Their faith in me and my idea was the motivation I needed to really start figuring out how I could turn my social enterprise vision into a reality. I was so excited to head over to Bangladesh in May 2020, to get things started…but then COVID-19 happened, and like everyone else in the world, my plans had to change.
But I knew I had to start testing the market as soon as possible, to see if my idea was viable. I was so grateful for the support of an incredible group of volunteer stitchers from my local community – nearly all of them mothers themselves – who created a mini collection of Happy Blankets, which I sold through an online auction.
The funds raised enabled me to keep going and start figuring out the logistics of setting up production in Bangladesh. By this time last year, we were ready to launch a rewards-based crowdfunding campaign to create our first ‘Made in Bangladesh’ collection.
The pandemic made every step of the process challenging – from only being able to see fabric samples via WhatsApp images, to figuring out how to film our crowdfunding video remotely – but it also generated incredible creativity and an overwhelming sense of community spirit.
It’s been incredible to witness how our social enterprise vision has inspired a global community of mothers supporting mothers to build better futures for the next generation.
We consult our community at every opportunity – for example, we’re in the process of expanding our product range, and they’ve provided brilliantly useful feedback – and so many people have volunteered their time and energy to help me do things that I had no idea how to do alone.
Are there any fellow mums running social enterprises who have inspired and/or supported you?
Shakti.ism founder Jitna Bhagani and Secret Projects founder Fritha Mason have been incredibly generous with their time and expertise, helping me to get started with turning my social enterprise vision into reality.
Sophie Rochester, founder of Yodomo, who offered to host our “Make your own Happy Blanket” workshop, which offers people the opportunity to use fabric that means something to them to create their own special kantha blanket for a little one in their lives, inspired by our designs.
But most of all, Meg Fry of Home Community Cafe. In the early days of motherhood, she and her team provided a true “home” for me and my daughters. They often provided a shoulder to cry on (and a free coffee!) when trying to get Khushi Kantha off the ground alongside my “day job” (helping organisations in the international development and humanitarian sectors understand, measure and communicate impact) and my “24/7” job as mum to newborn twins became a bit much!She and her brilliant team (most of whom are fellow mums) were right at the centre of my local community’s response to the pandemic.
How will you be marking Mother’s Day 2022 at Khushi Kantha HQ and at home?
At home: Attending a picnic with alpacas with my mum and two year old, half-British, half-Bangladeshi twin daughters, Opi and Mahi. We’ll be using the grown up-sized Happy Blanket she ordered to support the crowdfunding campaign we ran to fund the creation of our first collection. Plus visiting my granny, who has been a major supporter of Khushi Kantha from day one (she replies to every single one of our newsletters with words of encouragement!).
Khushi Kantha HQ: As with all special occasions, I’ll ask the mothers I’m partnering with how they would like to celebrate – whether they would prefer a cash bonus, to spend in whatever way they prefer (which they opted for at Christmas), or for us to organise an event for them and their families (which they chose for International Womens’ Day).
Which other social enterprises would you like to shout out?
Empowerfull is a social enterprise empowering human trafficking survivors in Albania. I’m endlessly amazed by what founder Anxhela Bruci manages to achieve with such limited resources.
I also love Elvis and Kresse and the way they share their story. It’s provided me with lots of inspiration for Khushi Kantha’s blog!
Hear from more inspiring female founders:
- Learning on the job with Hip Hip Hooray
- Building a truly eco and ethical business – behind the scenes at bide
- The sweet deal of a pastry apprenticeship with Miss Macaroon
Know a new mum or parent? Discover thoughtful gifts for new parents.
