Why Lost Stock?

The problems of lockdown

When the UK went into lockdown in March, the impact on the high street was huge. With shops closed and warehouses struggling to operate and adhere to social distancing rules, retailers stopped accepting stock and started cancelling orders. These cancellations, reportedly of over $2 billion dollars worth of stock from Bangladesh alone, caused a massive blockage in the supply chain.

Stock orders of brand new summer clothes looked likely to end up in landfill leaving factories out of pocket and employees unpaid, so we started to think about how we could connect the clothes to consumers who wanted them.

But we knew it had to be more than this. 

The people making these clothes essentially lost their livelihoods overnight and there is no safety net for them. That’s why our main priority with Lost Stock has always been to help the workers on the ground in Bangladesh. 

Creating a partnership

We opted to partner up with an NGO to ensure we were helping support these workers. 

The NGO that we chose was SAJIDA Foundation. They began in Bangladesh back in 1987 as a small garage school for disadvantaged children. From this humble start, they now offer various social development programs for over six million people, working across 26 districts, with a dedicated team of 3,711 caring change makers.

With the devastating onset of COVID-19, the foundation has doubled up their efforts to help tackle the virus from a healthcare perspective. They’ve dedicated a vast amount of resources to hospitals and social enterprises. They are also focusing on care packages and in the last two months, they’ve distributed food and hygiene packages to over 50,000 households. 

Each package contains necessary daily grocery items like rice, lentil, soybean oil, salt, soap, etc., enough for a small family to survive a week. They’re committed to supporting these highly vulnerable and marginalised communities who are struggling to meet their basic daily requirements during this lockdown situation, people who often fall between the cracks at the best of times.

Our donation

These parcels will be the difference between life and death for so many people in Bangladesh, and with every Lost Stock box bought a worker and their family will be supported for a week through our donation to SAJIDA Foundation.

An example of the kind of people the foundation makes a real difference to is Khodeja. 

Khodeja is a single mother who has constantly fought to provide for her three children. She supports her family through her business: buying and selling of recycled goods. Her business is now in tatters because of the lack of economic activity due to the COVID-19 crisis. SAJIDA Foundation, with support from IDLC, came forward to support her family with a package of food and daily essentials. 

Your support is going to make a real difference.

Thanks again,

Cally and Team Mallzee.

Image credit: SAJIDA Foundation