In 1999, while living in India, Jiji (FUNDAGARROBO co-founder) and Iongsin (Jiji's Korean-Swiss friend) wanted to raise funds for schools in disadvantaged communities on the outskirts of New Delhi. After seeking sponsors, a manufacturer agreed to produce fashionable children's clothing for the cause from its leftover fabrics for less than the export price.

We named the collection "Sitara", a Hindi word meaning star, and sold the first collection to the international community of New Delhi. The Sitara children's clothes sold like hot cakes!!!....and the fun began!

Sitara is also the name of a girl who worked as a merchandiser with the producer who supplied us with the clothes. She lived with her family in a community near the factory that produced our collection. Sitara started as a helper to everything, cleaning and serving tea. She had little education, but she continued to study after work. Within a few years, she became a trusted employee; she rose to the challenge and became the company's star marketer, responsible for some of its large European buyers.

It was then that the idea was conceived to design a training program for disadvantaged young women to create jobs and raise funds by adding value to surplus fabrics or leftovers from mass production. But the concept traveled quite a bit: from India, Spain, to Cambodia.

And after eleven years, the GARROBO project was born in 2010! Unexpectedly. In El Salvador! 

Two years later, the pilot project was officially launched. And on March 11, 2016, the GARROBO project was officially gazetted as a registered non-profit organization in El Salvador as Fundación Garrobo de El Salvador.

Sitara's story was -and will continue to be the inspiration for the GARROBO project.