As South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM) unfolds, it offers not just a chance to celebrate identity and culture, but also a platform to spotlight real-world impact. This year, two UK-based, South Asian-founded organisations, WUKA and The Washing Machine Project (TWMP), have come together to turn heritage into action.
Their collaboration honours shared roots, lived experiences, and a commitment to building a better future for women and girls around the world. During the campaign period between July 28 to August 11, 10% of profits from WUKA’s online sales will be donated to the TWMP Foundation, funding sustainable laundry solutions for communities where handwashing clothes remains an invisible, unpaid burden.
A heritage of resilience and reinvention
For Ruby Raut, founder and CEO of WUKA, and Navjot Sawhney, founder of TWMP, this collaboration is more than a corporate partnership, it’s a deeply personal tribute to their South Asian upbringing and the women who shaped them.
Ruby remembers her mother spending nearly 20 hours a week hand-washing clothes in water-scarce Nepal. Years later, her mother lives with chronic wrist pain and never had the opportunity to work outside the home.
“South Asian Heritage Month is a celebration of both where we come from and where we can go,” says Ruby. “Nav and I grew up in communities where menstruation and household labour were taboo. Today, we’re turning those realities into platforms for change. That’s what resilience looks like.”
“That experience shaped how I see unpaid domestic labour. It’s not just tiring, it steals opportunity,” Ruby says. “This collaboration is about reclaiming time and dignity, not just for our mothers, but for women and girls everywhere.”
WUKA (Wake Up Kick Ass), has become the UK’s leading sustainable period brand by challenging period poverty and reducing plastic waste through reusable period pants. TWMP, on the other hand, tackles the global crisis of manual laundry with a manually operated, off-grid washing machine. This simple yet powerful invention drastically reduces the hours spent washing clothes, a burden disproportionately carried by women in low-income communities.
The two brands are united by more than just South Asian heritage. Both centre their innovations around empathy, sustainability, and social equity.
“Ruby and I were shaped by the same cultural forces —strong women doing invisible work,” says Navjot. “I started TWMP after meeting Divya, a neighbour in South India who told me how laundry dominated her life. Our mission is to give that time back, to allow women to study, work, or just rest.”
Reframing heritage through innovation
At the core of this partnership is a shared belief that cultural heritage is not static,it evolves when people act on it. By drawing on their South Asian backgrounds, Ruby and Navjot aren’t just celebrating their identity, they’re reimagining it.
“This partnership is a love letter to our roots,” says Ruby. “We’re blending cultural understanding with practical innovation. Whether it’s periods or laundry, we’re creating sustainable, empathetic tools that tackle silent burdens and that’s how we honour where we come from.
“It is about rewriting what it means to honour our heritage. It’s not just about pride, it’s about progress.”
Navjot echoes this. “South Asians are globally minded, entrepreneurial, and community-driven. One in seven UK Asians runs a business or is self-employed. This partnership is an example of what happens when we take that spirit and use it to solve problems close to home, and globally.”
