The Dynamic Duo behind Haushala Creatives!

Six years on, Haushala Creatives, an ethical sustainable fashion social enterprise run by two fascinating sisters, Haushala and Samanta is moving forward together. Haushala with a Social Work Degree and Samantha with a Business Degree, with a solid eight years between them, they make an unbelievable team with passion, compassion and fashion.

Sisterhood is an important part of our lives, a bond nothing can break. These sisters are unlike most, they are a powerhouse of knowledge and leaders of the community.

You guys are sisters who have opened up this fantastic women’s cooperative together. How does that work?

Haushala – It’s been a pretty good journey, since she is 8 years younger, I can learn from her about what’s trending, what works, technology bits which I have no clue about, it really works for the company and the vision we have for it. The way it works basically is, we are plan events and our products a year ahead. It’s not easy. It’s pretty tough.

Samanta – Personally, I have a platform and having a business of my own, but having your sister as your boss, supervisor or partner, that’s been challenging and yet a learning experience. It gives us the space to learn from each other, especially from the mistakes, it’s easygoing as its more forgiving compared to working for someone else, at the same time she isn’t forgiving either. Most importantly, we are a support system, at the end of the day, we are family and I feel like it helps balance thing.

What are your goals for the initiative you have started?

Haushala - Our goal has always been to make Children and Youth First (CYF) more sustainable, we want Haushala Creatives to be able to cover 75% of the charity work CYF does. We touch on transgender issues also, issues that are not being highlighted by other media or other issues that are under the radar, we want to bring them out with the brand, taking people along with us in the process in order to reach our goal.

Samanta – Apart from our end goal, we also want to encourage women, women from different background, also trying to reach out to vlogger, bloggers, movie makers - young women. We don’t only want to be that ethical fashion brand that supports children’s education but also a brand that supports women and set an example and support them in any way we can. Obviously profit making is also our main goal, because without profits we cannot support the school, but during the process, we also want to take people along with us, especially women.

What are your individual goals?

Samanta - Further study definitely, something that will help the brand grow bigger, maybe fashion, ethical fashion, and sustainable fashion, something that’s related to Haushala Creatives and to reach our goal, something that’s new. To grow Haushala Creatives and expand it to a few other places along with my education. It is very important that your education supports what you are doing. So far, it has but I want to get into something more specialized, my goal is to run multiple businesses. Also make people more responsible while consuming fashion and fashionable goods, advocacy in ethical fashion and responsible consumption. Other than that, I run a project, called Project Re-Define, with domestic helpers, still very young and I hope to develop it as a business and one of the businesses that I run.

Haushala – My goal right now is to have a lot of self-care and self-love, since I have been working in this field for the past 10 years; I have spent my younger days in creating a beautiful now, but what I have realized is, if I do not care for myself and my mental health it’s going take a toll on me and which it has, so my individual goal, is self-love and self-care, so I can give that love and care to the people who are around me and things that matter to me the most.

Is it difficult working with each other? How do you overcome these difficulties?

Haushala – It is very difficult working with each other, but last year I think we hit a point where we had to sat down and talk to each other about how we feel for each other. And it’s not easy working with your sibling, I’ve been working in a certain way and you want someone else to be working in the same way, however, communication is the best way to solve that. If you don’t talk to each other then it escalates. I think that’s how we have dealt with it.

Samanta – It’s very challenging. I’ve studied business and Haushala Creatives is a business, I have theoretical knowledge and I try to imply them and my sister has the experience and she has dealt with people, she has been through it and sometimes it does not balance out. She’s got the experience and I have got the education and sometimes it clashes but slowly we have starting to overcome. The best part is also having her as a sister, because there is a push factor, she wants me to learn, it’s not just work.

How do you find teaching/educating men on the work you do?

Haushala – As far as my experience, with CYF and Haushala Creative; our office is very open, we have a half-naked women’s poster on one of our walls, which is there for a reason. Uncomfortable situations make people think, that’s what we want to create. We have had cases, where men have come to the office, very traditional thinking educated young men, saying “this is provocative”, “this will not help me work here” and “this diverts my mind” and honestly, I don’t blame them. They are very honest, which I respect. We tell them there is the reason for the poster, we want you to talk about it, I think that’s when the teaching begins, because these are the issues we deal with as women and it’s never easy. And that’s the beauty about teaching people, if we don’t share, they will never know about these issues. We will have about 15-20 people come into the office and 4-5 will come and ask us and we educate them and that’s how the ball keeps rolling and the awareness picks up as well.

Samanta –Currently, Haushala Creatives has made such a presence that people know we work for women empowerment especially people who come across this organization; they get the idea of it. As the brand is growing, I am growing up and my friends, they have become more sensitive with the issue of women, this brings us back to not teaching or education them but the socializing process of it. When they start seeing that young women are doing things, they are learning, not in a class room setting, no lectures, but them understanding the possibilities of it. When they see the change and live in that change it comes automatic. I don’t blame the men who don’t understand as it’s the socialization process overall. I take it very positively, if someone takes it offensively, I try to understand where they come from. The way they were raised, educated, it’s very different from ours and we need to see it from their perspective, this is how I deal when I come across sexist comment or when people are against feminism.

How does your social life fit into your busy schedules?

Samanta – For me it’s very seasonal, when we have lots of work I don’t have a social life at all. I am mostly supervising things, I am looking at sourcing raw materials, so far, I am balancing it out. I have lost few friends in the process; they don’t understand why I can make time and why I can’t make time. One thing is I make sure I have my amount of fun time as well. Sometimes it might be alone, with friends, I think because mental sanity is important. Work is there, everything else is there but your mental health is important. One of the reasons I never wanted to do a 9-5 job, because I need time for myself.

Haushala – This is the reason why I feel like there is so much I can learn from her too. Before I didn’t know how to manage my social life, I am taking care of CYF, we have an amazing team and Haushala Creative started and I still don’t know how to handle my social life. I still don’t have a balanced social life, I’ll be honest. I like to have pocket of friends, that I can go laugh, talk to, friends I can talk to about how I feel, my stresses, friends that will probably talk about work. I give time now, it’s more important for my mental sanity like Sam said, I never put myself first before and now too, I need to remind myself to chill.

What is social enterprise to you and what do you think about young people starting their own social enterprise?

Haushala – Social enterprise to me is more about giving back to the community and you are also making money. I want to tell the young people is, you will be very energized in the beginning, one or two media will cover you even when you haven’t achieved anything, people just want stories but don’t let that take up on your ego. Your enterprise will only be considered a winner, when you are there at the end. People need to see a timeline of what you have done and that’s how people are measuring it now, what have you achieved as a start-up? Collaborating is such a big tool. We are born into such a competitive world, that we feel like we need to compete with everybody, it’s a competition; but you also need to learn that there needs to be strategic collaborations/ partnerships. That’s what gets you going; two can create a larger crowd. As a brand Haushala Creative is really trying to voice up and say let’s collaborate!

Samanta – For me social enterprise is something, one passionate person wants to make a change in the world meets business. That is when social enterprise begins, one of the reasons why I find myself, lucky having studied business because I can make a social enterprise on any of the issues. However, it has also become a trend, because if we look at big companies, who have made it, they all started with the purpose of making life easier for everyone, it also had a social purpose to it. That’s how I see it, when passion and creativity comes with business; social enterprise is born. This is why we also try to do a lot of dialogues and speaker series, bringing people who are not already “famous”, people who are struggling, people who are trying to get somewhere, we resonate ourselves with them compared to people who are already successful. I want to add, self-branding too. Most social media influencers they have made a difference in their lives by using it the right way with a purpose. That’s how CYF started, social media helped; this is how, you will be approached and collaborations will come to you. Visibility and presenting yourself to the world, helps to encourage the younger generation to get the right connections and the right network with time.

Going global on your initiative, what have been the difficulties and how have you moved forward?

Haushala – For CYF, we are now in Austria and US, we feel as an organization, going global has been very important for us, as a non-profit. Going global, you need to make sure your vision is always intact. There are good hearted people who want to support you, but you have to let them know what your goal is what your vision is for your organization, because when different people get together, they have different ideas, everybody gets excited, and you need to put them all together and tell them this is the vision. You have to keep on reminding them and this is the most difficult thing for CYF. But now its been 10 years, people have understood our vision, we have also achieve some of our goals and visions, now we have our own school. Our story comes with our brand, and we want our story shared, however we find that people who do buy our products do not have the same vision and portray our products in ways, we do not believe in and its becomes very difficult; because of this, you have to be very vocal about what you want and what your vision is. Being vocal has helped us move forward at the same time.

Samanta – She has summed it up pretty well.

What importance does being sisters and working together mean to you?

Haushala - Being sisters is very important, I never thought I would be working with my younger sister. We find a middle ground and working with your sister is the most thriving experience because there are so many possibilities and you are just moving forward. You are progressing together and not only us but also in a wider scale and globally. If you can work with your sister, do it. Put your differences on the table and talk; we argue, we see another perspective, how do governments work, how do big companies work; it’s just the two of us running a small company and we have arguments, we don’t talk and everything gets stuck

Samanta – For me it’s important because it keeps us on the same page and our objectives; with time, we may drift apart, we might start different families, life happens. My sister moved out of the house earlier on, we had a huge gap in between, in terms of communication but we started working and although we disagree on a lot of things we also agree. At the end of the day we know our purpose and we know our goals are the same for the greater benefit of people around us. It’s crazy but it is very important for me to work with her, as a sister, it keeps our relationship in check even when we are fighting with each other we come back to the point. There is no one I trust more than my sister. With conflict comes progress.

How many of us can really say, we could work with our siblings?