Overview of KOCO
KOCO stands for Knit One (garment) Change One (life). We are hand-knitting experts and work with fashion brands around the world. We are changing the lives of ladies who live in rural villages in southern Tamil Nadu, India, by educating and employing them in our handknitting hubs.
We employ women who had little or no school education and no employment prospects aside from seasonal work labouring in fields or construction sites. We offer a paid apprenticeship in which women learn the art of handknitting, reading English and mathematics. They are then employed full-time with KOCO as artisan handknitters.
Our ladies set their own working hours to balance work and family life. For the first time in these villages, women are earning a stable income. The employment, ongoing training and personal development at KOCO is like a pebble dropped in a pond; the ripple-effect is transforming whole villages where our hubs are based. We are creating life-changing fashion.
The KOCO Story
Imagine ... if handknitting was the new language of global connection it would knit brands, consumers and artisans together.
KOCO is more than a manufacturing hub. When we employ a lady, we are also providing the foundations skills which support her ongoing learning and personal development. At the end of her apprenticeship, she can handknit one garment perfectly and we have begun a process of transforming her life.
KOCO was established in Australia in partnership with women who live in rural villages of southern Tamil Nadu, India. What began as a solution to producing handknitted garments off-shore is now a sisterhood of artisans and a business with the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development entwined in our DNA. We are delivering on the UN’s Goals of Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Reduce Inequalities, and Responsible Consumption and Production.
We are a certified B-Corporation which recognises our commitment to the highest standards of social and environmental performance. In 2017 we won the Australia-India small business award. I am also a published author.
KOCO began with ten women, sitting on the floor of a home in a rural village with our founder and director Danielle Chiel. She didn’t speak Tamil, and the ladies didn’t speak English, but were determined to make the business work.
We established a paid apprenticeship and quality control measures to ensure every garment was made to exact specifications without machine intervention – no waste, no carbon footprint.
We have scaled the art of handknitting to a science able to produce large quantities of garments, all 100% handknitted. We currently employ 150 knitters. Each of our artisans supports a family of six or seven people, so KOCO is changing the lives of more than 150 families every single day.
Every day we hear stories of what the work means to our artisans. We see them blossoming into confident, strong women. For many, working at KOCO is the first time they feel their own value and their self-esteem is growing. For the next generation of girls in rural India, their mother’s stable income means they can attend school. We see the ripple-effect supporting women has on whole communities.
Bringing these ladies together, away from their domestic life has created a wonderful sisterhood. This connection is an integral part of the KOCO story which is touching the hearts of brands and consumers around the world. We are building a women’s only business which is handknitting the world together.
