This Woman Helped 15,000 Women Earn By Selling Their Embroidery Work To Brands Like FabIndia And Ikea
I am aware that I live a life of privilege. Women like me, may have our own struggles, but I acknowledge that I have gotten to live a life full of opportunity and without struggling for basic rights. However, there still remains a major sect of women in the country, who struggle day in day out to get out of the box that they’ve been limited to. The women of Meghwal community in Rajasthan are one of the many, but things are changing and they have people they can sell their work to, thanks to one woman.
Having shifted base to parts of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh after partition, the post war life of women belonging to the Meghwal community has been full of struggles. Owing to the age old patriarchy and customs that confined them to a role of a home-maker, these women have been struggling with financial woes and displacement for as long as decades.
And considering how the society has always tried to push women down, not allowing them to earn a livelihood for themselves and systematically making them dependent on their husbands for survival, there was a need for change and it was pressing. Which is what motivated women like Lata Kachhawaha, a social worker with Society to Uplift Rural Economy (SURE), who is working for women empowerment and helping them sell their wares.
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Recalling the time when women of the community had to struggle even to survive, she says, “The district’s climatic conditions left it riddled with droughts and limited farming choices. It’s also very remote, so transportation and communication were a challenge as well. The biggest issue was water shortage. The women were suffering the most.”
Lata arrived in Barmer in 1985 when she was just 22 after her mother had passed away. She shared, “My elder brother brought me here because I was looking for a change. I’m originally from Jodhpur, and had always been involved in social work. I met Shree Magraj Jain, who was the founder of Sure and was instantly inspired by the work he was doing.”
Jodhpur Woman Helps 15000 More Sell Their Traditional Embroidery to Germany, Japan https://t.co/5SEl6kX4H6 Lata Kachhawaha, who arrived in Barmer district in Rajasthan in 1985, works with Sure NGO to empower women of the Meghwal community to earn a living through Kashidakari,….
— Jitender Bhardwaj (@journo_jitendra) March 16, 2021
And that work was that of kashidakari, a kind of embroidery used to decorate shawls, handkerchiefs, bed covers, cushions, and bags, among a host of other items. Earlier, limited to homes and only done to fulfil dowry during marriage, Kashidakari has now emerged as a proper business with merchants acting as middlemen to sell it in the market. The work that these women do gets as far as to countries such as Germany, Japan, Singapore and Sri Lanka. Over 15,000 such women have been helped through embroidery. By helping them sell and reach more markets, Lata is helping these women earn their livelihood.
Lata says, “We saw how men would have to leave the town to find work in other cities or states, leaving the women and elderly behind. The women would become burdened by the responsibilities of caring for the house by themselves, and were left with little agency.”
However now, Lata has joined hands with designers from National Institute of Design, National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and Dastkar to hold workshops and develop over 250 designs in accordance with the fashion trends of the time. The women sell their work to brands like FabIndia and Ikea. Lata shared, “We made a group with the women wherein they could track the number of pieces they were making and how much they were earning in return. It was to familiarise them with being able to tell how many hours they were putting in and assessing if the compensation they were receiving was adequate. They would price the products themselves based on the cost of raw material, shipping, storage, etc. ”
The women in the community are now being taught about entrepreneurship concepts including breaking even, balancing sheets, profits and losses, among lot others. “Generations of women are involved in this work, and today the daughters of these households are both earning as well as being able to study,” shared Lata, as she spoke about how women now earn upto 5,000 Rs every month.
It’s delightful to see these women work hard to not be dependent on the male figures in the family for survival. Lata also said, “Helping these women earn meant that we would have to ask them to step out of their homes. We faced massive challenges in that, because it was strictly against what was allowed at the time. The community was averse to outsiders, and thought that women who come from other areas try to talk and engage with the Meghwal women were corrupting the latter. We had to work on building trust and forming our own relationships with them. We lived with them, ate with them, participated in their festivities, and tried our past to make them feel like we were part of the community. We’ve also had to keep up with the changing trends of the time to ensure the women can keep earning.”
More than that, Lata talks about how the initiative is not just to help women earn but also gather awareness about life. “Over 40 years, we have worked to provide them sanitation, sexual health awareness, education for their children, water security, taught them sustainable agriculture, and advocated for their food entitlement.”
