Our Vision
The heart of Promise Bags
Our business was birthed out of a dream to give holistic freedom to women trapped in caste-based discrimination, poverty, and hopelessness.
While such discrimination is technically outlawed in India, it is still widespread. By its very nature, it robs of hope and creates a sense of powerlessness in the face of struggle. We are here to change that, one woman at a time – and with every child to follow.
With Promise Bags, the once ‘Untouchables’ (Dalit class) are now creating a brigther future for themselves and the generations to come.
Our journey begins
We founded Promise Bags with an ethos that centred around creating empowerment, not reliance.
In fact, it is this reason we are a business and not a charity – we teach people skills of economic value and focus on sustainable operations that are self-funding in perpetuity, so they gain independence and we can increasingly scale our impact.
2015
Promise Bags begins, employing just six women. Positioned alongside our Light Home children’s orphanage and school, it allows our staff to enjoy safe and reliable employment whilst accessing quality education for their children. The Promise Bags vision is coming to life!
2019
As customers around the world have discovered our unique story and gorgeous leather products, our headcount doubles. We now employ 12 Dalit women.
2023
Powered by an ambitious new vision, we engage pro bono partners to embark on a total rebrand, plus the design of our signature Promise Bags collection, helping us connect with a truly global market.
2024
Our second chapter begins: our new brand and collection launches!
The future
With continued support of our loyal customers helping to share the Promise Bags story, we have a dream to employ 100 women by 2030.
Discover
our Signature collectionS
When uncompromising craftsmanship meets world-class materials.
Shop our finest bags from our Signature collection, designed to effortlessly elevate your everyday.
Brother Elisha serving food at Light Kids school
Our Founder
Meet Elisha Chowtapali: a man with heart and vision like few others.
Known to most as ‘Brother Elisha’, he first started an orphanage after bringing a single child in off the street to share his family’s 3m x4m home. Then came more children, and a small school in which to educate them, and with both initiatives a need to constantly seek funds from overseas donors.
What if, Brother Elisha wondered, we could generate income to support our school and home, and therefore have less reliance on others’ philanthropy? And what if we could use our business employ those who so desperately needed a safe, reliable place of work?
From these questions, the Promise Bags vision materialised.
Nearly ten years later, Brother Elisha remains at the helm, guiding the organisation and managing day-to-day operations alongside the Light Home orphanage and school.
*It should be noted that despite teaching himself near impeccable English as an adult during a trip abroad, Brother Elisha in his humility would never be found to tell his story like this – but fortunately, he now has a team more than willing to tell it for him!
Meet our beautiful artisans
Our ladies are at the heart of all we do, and why we do it. Take a moment to understand their stories here.
Our LEATHER
Our premium quality eco-leathers are tanned without the use of harmful chemicals like chromium and have no synthetic top finish. We choose to work with naturally tanned leathers because it’s safer for people and the planet.
We use full grain leather as it is is characterized by its luxurious, smooth surface and it has few, if any, flaws. It is the most popular type of leather. It has not been snuffed, sanded, or buffed to remove any natural marks or imperfections from its surface.
This type of leather does not wear out easily. Instead, it develops a patina, which is a thin layer that protects the leather from damage from wearing or corroding; it also gives the leather an aesthetic look. It is used in making high-quality goods.
Shop our range
Elevate your look across almost any occasion
Introducing Light Home
A joint destiny
LIGHT Home is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to providing a safe and secure environment for orphan, poor, abandoned, neglected, and underprivileged children of India. Founded in 2006, its primary focus is on Dalit (Untouchable) children and communities – the most underprivileged and vulnerable members of Indian society. Alongside LIGHT Home is LIGHT School, where children from the Home and the surrounding community receive a quality, nurturing education.
LIGHT Home and SCHOOL operates alongside and are supported by Promise Bags’ commercial operations. Many of the women employed by Promise Bags have children attending the school, a further benefit of their employment as such an education dramatically improves their children’s prospects – going from likely careers in menial work and day labouring to professional roles capable of supporting their families and lifting themselves out of the intergenerational poverty into which they were born.
