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Partner

Acting for Life
Date of creation : 1979
Activity : Acting for Life (formerly “Groupe Développement”) is an international community outreach organisation recognised of “Public Utility”, providing technical and financial support to over 100 local associations in some 40 countries. The object of the association is to facilitate aid to development initiatives, to promote cooperation with developing countries, primarily via socially oriented economic projects, to fight sexual abuse and violence against children and adolescents.
Web site
City : Le Bourget
Country : France

Swift Wash: An industrial laundry as an economic alternative for victims of prostitution

NGO Partnership
/ 2010

Field	Income generating activities
Country	India
City	Goa
Beneficiaries	Former prostitutes and procurers repentant
Number of beneficiaries	Between 50 and 200

Context

The Project

Purposes

The goal of the Swift Wash laundry, launched in 2006, is to provide support and guidance to former victims for social integration. To this purpose, they need to be provided with a source of income, vocational training and psychosocial assistance.
The laundry currently employs 50 persons and runs 7 days a week, 365 days a year, in three shifts. Laundry collection, washing, ironing and delivery are carried out and supervised by the project beneficiaries themselves. Swift Wash counts among its clients the Taj Group in the hotel sector or Sanofi Aventis in the pharmaceutical industry.

Swift Wash now intends to become financially independent in order to ensure the sustainability of its anti-prostitution and victim reintegration actions on the long term.
To this purpose, this project proposes to lay the foundations for sustainable and controlled business growth (step 1), before considering an investment in equipment required to expand the business (stem 2).

Activities

The project is designed on the one hand to build the management capacities of the local staff:
- Establishment of a governance model, an organisational chart and definition of roles and responsibilities of each position in the laundry, via a management consulting audit conducted by a local consultant;
- Formation of a qualified management team (beneficiaries trained in-house + recruitment of immediately usable skills) and transfer of decision-making power by the founders to this new management team;
- Training of beneficiaries in management techniques (marketing, accounting, billing, sourcing, customer relations, etc.)
- Personal development workshops;
- Guidance and assistance to beneficiaries and their families, conducive to enhanced empowerment and closer involvement in the laundry business.

In addition, the project intends to prepare for the future expansion of the laundry:
- Definition of operational processes;
- Implementation and monitoring of established processes, and quality control;
- Follow-up of contracts by the customer relations manager;
- Definition of the business plan;
- Search for financial partners.