Seasonal Cards Launch Friday

This Friday we launch our 2026 seasonal cards collection, and to mark the occasion we wanted to share the story of how Sreepur Cards began.

Sreepur Village was founded in 1989, but it was two years later, in 1991, that Sreepur Cards was born: a card and paper making project that would go on to support hundreds of mothers over the following decades.

The project was the vision of Captain Rob Jenkinson, a long haul pilot for British Airways who flew regularly between the UK and Dhaka. Working alongside our co founders Pat Kerr and Trisha Silvester, and with funding from a generous UK sponsor for the machinery needed, Rob helped set up a workshop where mothers could turn jute waste and recycled paper into beautiful handmade cards.

Rob's contribution went far beyond getting Sreepur Cards off the ground. For decades he used his position at British Airways to persuade the airline to fly the cards from Bangladesh to the UK completely free of charge, a donation that kept costs down and meant more money reached the mothers who made them. Once the cards landed, Rob took over himself, packing and posting every single order from his own home, year after year, as the official Director of Sreepur Cards.

The cards themselves built a loyal following. The Guardian's Money section featured them for years, once calling them "the best Christmas card ever?" Sreepur Cards once supplied custom orders to well known organisations including HSBC, Tesco, Cancer Research and UNICEF. A community outreach strand also grew alongside the workshop, training mothers from the villages surrounding Sreepur to hand decorate the cards using wheat straw, spreading the benefit of the project beyond our own gates.

Rob was passionate about one thing above all: that 100% of the money raised from card sales should go straight back to the mothers and children who needed it. For the mothers involved, the income meant a genuine alternative to the garment factories, and a way to support their families with dignity.

Rob passed away in 2024, but his legacy continues. In his honour, our paper making section has been renamed Rob's Sunset Paper Project, a lasting tribute to the man who helped build Sreepur Cards into what it is today.

Let throw back to 15 years ago to one of our recordings of cards being made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Sie7Uqw4Q&t=6s