If you’re a do-gooder in this age of jaded, too-busy-to-care global citizens, you had better have one hell of a sparkly idea. Enter Sheena Matheiken: founder of The Uniform Project, in which the Brooklyn-based fashionista sets out to recreate the same drab-charcoal school-uniformish dress (designed by her buddy Eliza Starbuck) over 365 days (erm… that’s a year) to raise educational funding and awareness for underprivileged kids in India. I love how the project leads you in so many directions: philanthropy, voyeurism, community collaboration (people are encouraged to donate accessories to create new looks), Etsy (!), and a quasi-nostalgic search for something unique in every day:

I was raised and schooled in India where uniforms were a mandate in most public schools. Despite the imposed conformity, kids always found a way to bend the rules and flaunt a little personality. Boys rolled up their sleeves, wore over-sized swatches, and hiked up their pants to show off their high-tops. Girls obsessed over bangles, bindis and bad hairdos. Peaking through the sea of uniforms were the idiosyncrasies of teen style and individual flare. I now want to put the same rules to test again, only this time I’m trading in the catholic school fervor for an eBay addiction and relocating the school walls to this wonderful place called the internet.

Although this “sustainable wardrobe” concept has been explored by a few other artists in recent years (Alex Martin, Andrea Zittel), Sheena’s fashion-fundraiser spin seems to really be catching on ($11,659 raised thus far with 9 months to go). Donations to The Uniform Project will go on to the Akanksha Foundation – an NPO running out of India which, with every $360 raised, sends one more slum child to school for a year. For us over-pampered westerners, a dollar a day is peanuts in perspective, no? So if you’re feeling all warm and gooey, donate now! More about the Akanksha Foundation here below and at their website.

The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to impact the lives of less privileged children, enabling them to maximise their potential and change their lives. Akanksha works primarily in the field of education, addressing non formal education through the Akanksha centre and also formal education by initiating school reform.

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