To initiate
Kutch Craft in Sonalnagar, a craft committee was formed
with Mehtaben as its leader. The committee was responsible
for distributing the craft production kits to the women
of the village, monitoring quality, and collecting the finished
pieces and submitting them to SEWA for sale. For those women
who were not familiar with traditional embroidery work,
or who needed to improve their skills, trainings were provided
through SEWA. In total, thirty-eight women were provided
craftwork, which was done from home, earning them approximately
Rs.600 per month.
It has been almost three years since Kutch Craft began operating
in Sonalnagar. All craft activities are now coordinated
under the Jeevika Livelihood Security Project. Mehtaben
remains the head of the village craft group, as well as
a member of the Village Development Committee and district
spearhead team. She frequently travels in the neighbouring
villages explaining the production process and training
women to produce higher quality craftwork. The women of
Sonalnagar are presently earning Rs.1700-1800 per month
through their craftwork
The
story of Chandababen Viramji Sodha resembles that of Mehtaben.
She too was born in Pakistan, in the village of Phulio.
And she and her family too were refugees from the 1971 Indo-Pak
war. They migrated to Rajasthan, where they lived in a traditional
Bhunga hut. There her father worked as an agricultural labourer
and her mother earned an income from home by doing embroidery
work. After a short period of time, they migrated further
to Gujarat. Chandababen’s brother left first for the
village of Sonalnagar, establishing himself first as a casual
labourer and then as a labourer for the Gujarat Mine Development
Corporation (GMDC). The rest of the family followed shortly
thereafter.
After
one year in Gujarat, Chandababen was married. She moved
into a large Bhunga hut with her mother-in-law and three
brothers-in-law. In the beginning, her husband was as a
casual labourer, working once every five days. They had
five children, two sons and three daughters, all of which
have been educated at least to the fourth standard. Her
husband now works as a night watchman at GMDC and her eldest
son sells vegetables from local farms in the village.
A month
before the January 2001 earthquake, several SEWA fieldworkers,
one of whom was a relative of Chandababen, stopped at her
house for a cup of tea. They explained that they were on
their way to a neighbouring village to distribute food grain.
This was the first time that Chandababen heard about SEWA,
and she became interested in the organization. She joined
one month later, after the earthquake. She started by making
the craft production kits that SEWA distributes to artisans,
as well as producing several pieces of craftwork herself.
For her work, she was paid Rs.50 per day. She then became
leader of her village craft group of 35 women.
