Visiting WELL women

Our beautiful upcycled baskets and coaster are made with love by WELL women. WELL Stands for Women's Empowerment through Local Livelihood.

In 2011, we spent about 10 days with the group and they treated us part of WELL family. In 2012 december, we made a short visit. When we reached the center, they received us with big smiles and hugs. It was like getting back to our own families. Devi, one of the supervisor had birthday that day. She went to temple and came back early as we were visiting.

Nancy with Mary and Devi

We went around and talking to the women and showing kalakosh flyers and catalogue. They were all excited to see the products they make in print. 

Since last year, they started one new group to make rolled baskets and coaster out of newspaper. 

After spending couple of hours, we left the women group with a promise that next time we will visit them for at least couple of days. 

On the way back we stopped at Wellcafe to talk to Danny, founder of Wellpaper. We were happy to hear that they are getting good orders so that the women have enough work. Wellpaper products were nicely displayed at the Cafe including a decorated christmas tree.

Christmas tree decorated with wellpaper products

Visiting our handmade paper artisans in Jaipur

Our beautiful handmade paper products that includes notebooks, gift wrapping papers, gift bags and greetings cards are made with love by artisans at Eco-Friendly Papers (EFP) in Jaipur. We visited them on 5th Dec 2012 to talk to the artisans and see how the products are made.

Nancy and I reached EFP office in Jaipur on 5th December around 10 am. After a quick greetings, we left for sanganer to visit the handmade paper factory. In the factory there are about 25 people working, out of that about 10 are women. The workers earn between Rs. 4000 to Rs. 8000 per month, depending on the skill and experience. They work from early morning 6 am to afternoon 2 pm. We spoke with one worker who learned the skill from his brother and has been working in the factory for about 4 years. He is very confident and proud of his work. He is also happy to have daily job so that he can take care of his family in the village. EFP is working with factory management to build water recycling unit to make the handmade paper making more sustainable.

 Women working at handmade paper factory

Handmade paper factory

Nancy and Vaibav (EFP) with owner of handmade paper factory

In sanganer we also visited screen printing workshop, where our gift wrapping papers are made. It is a small scale unit run by local entrepreneur and there are 6 people working in printing different designs to make beautiful gift wrapping paper. Here the workers earn between Rs. 4000 to Rs. 7000 per month depending on skills and experience. 

Screen printing artisans demonstrating the printing process

Gift wrapping paper with screen printed design

In the afternoon, we visited the production unit in Jaipur, where the finishing work on journals is done. There are about 30 people working and the salaries are between Rs. 4000 (house keeping) to Rs. 20,000 (managing director). 

We spoke with Sita, who has been working with EFP for more than 6 years. She comes from very traditional family where women wear scarf to cover their head and face. Initially when she started working at EFP, she was very hesitant to talk to strangers. After about 6 years, she manages 6 people who are making embroidery work on journals and coordinates the work with designers. She is very confident now and spoke very openly how she has changed in the last 6 years. She is also happy that by working at EFP, she could take care of her family and send her son to good school in Jaipur.

EFP artisan Sita

We also spoke with Bhavari, leather artisan who makes covers for our leather journals. Before joining EFP, he used to make leather shoes and because of multinational shoe companies they could not sell their traditional handmade leather shoes. At EFP, he uses his skills to make leather journal covers. He also works as interface between EFP and leather artisans in his village. Once the designs are finalised, he takes the raw material and designs to his village and get the leather covers done by the villagers in their homes. With this several women who are staying home to take care of their children can earn additional income. In total there are about 100 families who are working for EFP remotely from their homes.

Bhavari and team of leather artisans

Leather artisas demonstrating design on leather cover

EFP is also providing medical support for the employees and if there are any marriages in family they provide financial support. In all, people working there are happy being part of EFP family and proud of what they are creating.

Rural Women Empowerment: My Impressions - Part II

After spending a week with WELLpaper's women self help groups near Pondicherry, I travelled to the southern tip of India, Kanyakumari to visit the NGO CHARDEP.

CHARDEP is based in the town Nagercoil, which is about 2o km north of Kanyakumari. It is run by the very dedicated, highly motivated and down-to-earth Mr. Manikandan and his team. They have several following programs which include Annapoorna Yatra, where they provide a daily meal for the homeless in the region. Another program is the HIV/AIDS treatment center, where they have a small clinic to provide regular treatment for HIV infected people. They also have women empowerment programs, which was the my main reason for my visit to Nagercoil.

Currently there are about 1500 self-help groups (SHGs), which are supported/mentored by CHARDEP. CHARDEP makes sure that they get credit from the local bank using their resources as guarantee, they distribute the money and make sure that the money is paid back to the bank in time. All of these self-help groups are coordinated by an outstanding woman Mrs. Mary, who does not have any formal education but knows how to manages about 10,000 men and women from the villages. As a mentor and as a friend, she connects outstandingly well with the women in the SHGs.

The first SHG we visited is in a village reached driving from Kanyakumari to Nagercoil. The women there are making stripes out of palm tree leaves, which are then later used in making hats. It was an amazing sight to see about 15 women sitting under a tree on a sunny day laughing, talking and at the same working on the palm leaves. The working hours there are flexible as the women need to take care of their household chores, thereforce most of the women work about 4 to 6 hours daily. In addition to earning money for their livelihood, they are happy just being part of the group creating something good out of the locally available resources.

Women working under a tree

Stripes made out of palm tree leaves

The next SHG we visited is in another village which is about 10 km from the first village. As the entire region is full of palm trees, the second SHG is also working with palm tree leaves. They get the palm tree leaves, cut them in half and wave them to make a sheet/slab which is used as a construction material for a roof of a hut or a fencing wall. Different in this SHG is the fact that some of the women are entrepreneurs. They lease the palm trees yearly, so that they have the much needed raw material and rest of the byproducts they can sell locally.

The working hours are flexible in in this SHG as well, women work whenever they have time during the day. Some of the women I spoke to are using the income in sending their children to better schools and colleges. One of the woman was very proud that she could send her son to a technical college in nearby town.

Women explaining to us about their work (note palm leave sheets which are used as mats)

Women who was skillfully cutting the palm leave into two (I was astonished to see the precision of her work)

In both the SHGs, I was happy to see that given a chance women can make a great impact in the society and bring the much needed socio-economic transformation in rural india.

Rural Women Empowerment: My Impressions - Part I

Recently I had the opportunity to visit some women’s self-help groups (SHGs) in India. Which was of course a great experience to see the the impacts of SHGs for women in rural India. Here are some of my notes and experiences from my visit.

Wellpaper:
In our online shop Kalakosh, the beautiful baskets out of old newspapers ("The Hindu"), are handmade by the women SHG of Wellpaper. WELL is the abbreviation of "Women Empowerment through Local Livelihood". Wellpaper was initiated in 2005 as a tsunami-relief effort to provide an alternative source of livelihood to the tsunami affected families in the region as well as to promote products made of recycled materials. Currently there are about 20 women divided into three groups working with Wellpaper. Wellpaper gives the orders to the groups and they also ensure that the groups have work around the year.

The groups act highly autonomously and the women are given the freedom to plan and to divide the production themselves. This include the planning, estimation of raw materials needed, ordering of raw materials and the division of the labour to make sure the products are finished on time. Before the women deliver the products to Wellpaper they then conduct a final quality check to ensure that no defective products are present. Although almost none of the woman have any formal education, their highly impressive product life cycle and their managing of the production is nothing less than a high quality formal production unit to be very proud of!

The women in the groups are treated equally and decisions are taken in a democratic way. Each woman has a role to fulfil and they are proud of creating these unique and beautiful products with their skills! Visiting the women of Wellpaper every day for one week, I was taken in with this place full of these energetic and fun-loving women taking pride in their work.

Unfortunately, during my stay at Wellpaper the very strong Cyclone Thane devastated the entire region causing damages to most of the houses. The day after the cyclone hit the region, I was quite surprised to see that the women were back to work and they were laughing and having fun as usual, even though some of them got their houses damaged. It is very inspiring to see the resilience and the inner strength of these women.

Some visual impressions from my visit:

Aftermath of the cyclone - the damage is visible

Widespread destruction of infrastructure - many were left without electricity for days

Usha with a paper basket in the initial stages

Poorna here is working on the base of a basket

Work being done on paper jewellery

Shagila at work rolling together the newspapers in to thin reeds (seen in the background)

After a week of stay there, I am convinced that SHGs are playing a great role in improving the living conditions in the region through empowering women. Notes from next SHG follows soon...