Women tailors get a stitch in time with WEAT initiative

Since the government has announced that each student will be entitled to four sets of free uniforms, there will be abundant orders for the women tailors.

Women with tailoring skill register this name with WEAT for membership in women Co-Operative Society to distribute the stitching of uniforms for the school students of the government of Tamil Nadu Scheme of free uniforms tothe school students in Tiruchi on Wednesday. Photo: M.Srinath

Nearly three-fourth of the over 90 members enrolled till date, in the multipurpose women’s cooperative society launched here recently by the Minister for Rural Industries M.C.Sampath, constitute tailors.

The 75 include a chunk of women who underwent training at the Apparel Training Centre at the Khajamalai Campus of Bharathidasan University.

The Women Entrepreneurs’ Association of Tamil Nadu (WEAT) has been recognised as the facilitating agency for streamlining orders for these women to stitch uniforms for children in State government schools.

Since the government has announced that each student will be entitled to four sets of free uniforms, there will be abundant orders for the women tailors. Each tailor will be able to earn Rs.10, 000 and even more per month, WEAT sources said.

Multipurpose cooperative society

Twenty five of the 75 women tailors enrolled themselves with the multipurpose cooperative society on Wednesday.

These women will be given cloth bits and will only have to stitch them and return, as a home-based income earning activity, S.Thilagavathi, WEAT secretary said, adding that there will be regular and continuous work order.

Twenty women have also enrolled with the society for engaging themselves in activities such as white board making, embroidery, areca nut plate making, and value-added products of banana and banana fibre.

Motivation programmes

On a periodic basis, WEAT has been conducting motivation programmes to prompt women into taking up entrepreneurship.

At one such programme that followed the process of registration of the 25 women tailors, a home-based women entrepreneur Viji oriented the participants on several activities, including painting and saree designing.

Along with N.Manimekalai, Professor, Department of Women’s Studies, Bharathidasan University, a few WEAT members who are now entrepreneurs also interacted with the participants. Asha spoke about value-added products suitable for hospitals that could be done with raw materials procured for manufacturing sanitary napkins while Alamelu dwelt on the business potential of banana and banana fibre-based products.

Alamelu spoke on behalf of a women self-help group that had recently started a retail outlet for selling the products at the Uzhavar Sandhai at K.K.Nagar. The group has sought the support of WEAT for securing food certification and packaging of products for export.