About Love Handmade
Founded in 2020, Love Handmade is a pioneering social enterprise empowering female home-based workers in rural Sindh, Pakistan. Currently working with 125 artisans across 10 villages, Love Handmade enables women, long excluded by cultural, geographic, and economic barriers, to earn dignified, sustainable incomes from their homes.
Our mission is bold, heartfelt and simple: to tackle poverty, gender inequality, and climate vulnerability by equipping women with the tools to thrive, while celebrating and preserving the rich artisanal heritage of Pakistan.
About Love Handmade’s Founder
Zein Ahmed is a leading social entrepreneur and ethical fashion advocate with over 30 years of experience in design, sustainability, and women’s economic empowerment. From her beginnings in Lahore with a deep passion for handloom textiles to launching her eco-conscious label, Guru, in New York, Zein has been at the forefront of the global slow fashion movement. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, and Vogue, and her career has been defined by a strong commitment to creating dignified livelihoods for women artisans.
In recent years, she has worked as a consultant with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), designing programs to promote financial inclusion, digital literacy, and entrepreneurship for rural women across Pakistan. Through her work, Zein has trained and built the capacity of over 2,000 home-based workers and rural artisans from Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan. Many of these women have since gone on to establish their own ventures in crafts, retail, food, and beauty. From this growing network, Zein continues to collaborate closely with 125 artisans through Love Handmade, a completely self-funded social enterprise.
The Heart of Our Work
Since day one, Love Handmade’s strategy has focused on self-sustaining, long-term transformation, not just income generation. Our mission is to equip rural female artisans with the tools, knowledge, and digital access they need to grow as resilient entrepreneurs in a climate-affected, rapidly digitizing world.
We go beyond training - we open doors. Through hands-on education in design, quality control, digital literacy, and financial management, women gain the practical skills to build and run sustainable businesses. Complementary workshops in time management, communication, and leadership deepen this growth, fostering confidence and a sense of agency.
With each new skill, a shift begins: voices rise, decision-making power increases, and women start to see themselves not just as artisans, but as changemakers. The ripple effects are real, our work has significantly improved the financial stability and autonomy of home-based workers in rural Sindh, while also contributing to shifts in social norms and business practices across their communities.