Retail Entrepreneur Sam Sisakhti Starts Fashion Charity to Help Underprivileged

A new charity called the “Believe in Yourself  Project” is helping to replace the poor body image that afflicts many girls and women. This image is heightened by what the traditional fashion industry deems as beautiful: Women are expected to appear a certain way and live up to a manufactured and unrealistic notion of what beauty is. At the same time, strained finances can prevent many girls from keeping up with what’s trending or cool, making them feel isolated among their friends for not being able to afford clothing that is deemed as "in" socially.

In an attempt to promote a positive body image, Believe in Yourself http://www.believeinyourself.org aims to help women feel better about themselves and their physical attributes and to promote healthy self esteem among young girls at an early age, empowering these young women to take on active social roles within their school communities.

Over the past year, UsTrendy (www.UsTrendy.com) Founder and Believe in Yourself President Sam Sisakhti has given formal dresses to underprivileged high school girls and college students across the country, for them to wear at their school dances. Donations began last winter, and Sisakhti reports that many of the girls in the program have had the self confidence to attend their first school dance.

Over last decade as CEO of UsTrendy, Sisakhti has grown increasingly concerned with the cyber bullying and body shaming that he has seen online. At the same time, he realized the enormous social pressure that many young girls feel to try to be hip and socially cool by wearing clothing that is seen as stylish. Many girls are unable to afford these fashions and can often feel ashamed socially.

These observations inspired Sam to launch the Believe in Yourself Project, a foundation that will provide needy girls with dresses for upcoming dances and at same time promote a positive body image through speakers and mentors.

This month, girls with limited financial resources in the Washington DC Area received dresses: http://believeinyourself.org/washington.php

"It was such an amazing and humbling experience to hear the stories of the girls and see their excitement about receiving a brand new dress to wear for their upcoming dance. Many of them said it was one of their first new items that were not handed down" says Sam Sisakhti.

Sam Sisakhti is the founder and CEO of UsTrendy. He was named Boston Magazine's Most Promising Innovator, Mass High Tech's Next Generation of Entrepreneur, and Internet Retailer's Top 10 Most Effective Social Media Marketers. UsTrendy is ranked as a top 500 online retailer in the second edition of the Internet Retailer Top 500 along with one of the 5 fastest growing e-tailers. UsTrendy serves as an online fashion marketplace to over 20,000 sellers from 100 countries. Sam was also listed on the Power 30 under 30 list which is comprised of the 30 most influential people in sports, media, or business.

Sam Sisakhti has been a keynote speaker at over 50 universities including Harvard University. He has also spoken for the last two years at IRCE ( the world's largest retail conference) with several thousand people attending his session.