Empowering Women. Preserving Crafts Since 1967
Inaugurated in 1967, Behbud is one of Pakistan’s largest and oldest non-profit organizations, providing employment to thousands of women for over five decades. What began as a welfare initiative has grown into a powerful movement; one that has empowered five generations of Pakistani women. Behbud’s work is centered around three core pillars: economic empowerment, education, and health.
Behbud is built on a single, powerful principle: working at the grassroots level. We physically reach women confined to their homes and villages, providing free training in hand embroidery and needlework to create sustainable livelihoods.
Beyond skill development and fair wages, Behbud supports its workers and their families through a 100-bed hospital for Maternal & Children Health in Rawalpindi, and community-based schools for their children.
Working with 7 traditional crafts, Behbud produces handmade apparel, home textiles, and accessories, playing a vital role in preserving Pakistan’s rich craft heritage.
Today, the Behbud ecosystem stands as a self-sustaining, ethically driven fashion brand, one that empowers home-based workers while creating lasting social impact across Pakistani society.
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Our Story
Behbud’s skills and vocational training centers enable women to earn a living with a higher goal for them to find respect and dignity within their households and community. Through community advocacy programs we help them realize the importance of education- leading to more women sending their children to school and becoming agents of change in their own right.
The Behbud Industrial Vocational Center in Rawalpindi provides opportunities to the thousands of women workers who learn craft, sewing and vocational skills here. So far we have trained over 100,000 home-based women workers spanning four generations. Their work generates income and uplifts them financially.
Our Crafts
Kantha Embroidery
Kantha is a type of hand embroidery popular in Southeast Asia. The exquisite work done by our artisans results in the entire cloth being covered with beautiful patterns of flora, fauna, birds and geometrical shapes made by running stitches.
Behbud’s Kantha embriodery is applied to a wide range of garments such as our kurtas and pants- all on 100% pure cotton.
Ralli
Ralli is the traditional craft of patchwork, appliqué, and embroidery that was originally made by the women in Pakistan’s Sindh province. For thousands of years, patterns (often derived from cultural symbols of the village) have been passed down from one generation to the next. To make a Ralli design, women cut small squares of fabric, turn under the edges and stitch these shapes onto the fabric by hand.
Behbud’s vast Ralli collection includes kurtas, children’s clothing and household products.
Shadow Work
Shadow Work is a type of embroidery worked on semi-sheer or sheer fabric, with the bulk of the embroidery on the back of the design so that the color of the thread – or rather, a shadow of the color – shows through on the front of the fabric between two solid-colored outlines.
At Behbud we use shadow work in our hand embriodered kurtas.
Block Printing
In block printing, a design is drawn and then carved into wooden blocks. The artisan applies colour to the block and presses it firmly on the cloth, making sure that the blocks join up exactly, so that the pattern can continue without a break.
Block printing by hand is a slow painstaking process- but yields uniquely beautiful results. At Behbud, our artisans innovate with traditional block printing to create new pattern variations for products like kurtas, bedsheets and table mats.
Cutwork
Cutwork is a needlework technique in which portions of a textile are cut away and the resulting "hole" is reinforced and filled with embroidery or needle lace.
At Behbud we use traditional hand cutwork techniques and find inspiration from nature and Italian crafts to create exquisite clothing and home accessories.
Cross Stitch
Cross-stitch is the oldest form of embroidery and can be found all over the world. It is a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches form a pattern that creates a picture.
Behbud’s cross stitich designs are time-honored ones featuring roses, tulips and our classic diamond pattern. Alongside our embriodered womenswear, we are known for our high quality cross stitched bed linen and table cloths.
