When interior designer Purvi Padia, a first-generation Indian-American, visited her family in India when she was 7, she was struck by the poverty throughout the country, particularly among its youth. That memory never faded, and decades later, Padia and her husband, Harsh Padia, launched Project Lion in partnership with UNICEF to help the 1.5 million displaced children in India.
The charitable initiative launched this past May, and was inspired by the movie Lion, which portrays the suffering and marginalization of the displaced children in India. “Humanitarian work is a major passion, but my real work is interior design, so I wanted to figure out a way to bring the two together,” Padia tells Business of Home. “I wanted to create a piece that could be based in Indian values and design where the proceeds would go to Project Lion.”