The two Savitrimai Phule women empowerment centres of Utkarsh Global Foundation at Velachery and Perumbakkam are up against a steep target. Twenty-five thousand masks have to be handed over to the office of the Director General of Police in the city to be distributed to the staff.
In regular circumstances, women would gather at these centres to measure, cut, stitch and pack cloth bags. Due to pandemic-related restrictions on the opening of vocational centres, for the last few months hundreds of women are stitching masks from their home. A vehicle ferries the stitched masks to the centres for sterilisation and packing.
For this Mumbai-based non-profit that launched its activities in Chennai in 2019 with a ‘Say No To Plastic’ campaign, the pandemic has signified new learnings as well as new beginnings. Having received training in tailoring, these women had been successful in turning their hand to mask-making and making other in-demand tailoring-related products.
Dagadu Londhe, president, Utkarsh Global Foundation, says it was at a Swacch Bharat Abhiyan meeting in New Delhi that they got the invitation to start their work in Tamil Nadu.
“Along with the Ministry of Environment, Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and Greater Chennai Corporation, we conducted various awareness campaigns for school and college students around the use of plastics. Our drive included free distribution of cloth bags made by underprivileged women that helps them support their family financially,” says Londhe, an advocate.
At Utkrash Global Foundation in Chennai
More than 49,000 cloth bags were distributed, which helped employ 25 women. This number increased during the pandemic.
“In the last one-and-a-half years, we have engaged with 345 women in making masks and cloth bags, helping them fetch ₹5000 a month, on an average,” says Londhe, adding that the pandemic forced the stakeholder they were working with to shift focus and the Foundation engaged the women in making and selling masks.
Although the bulk of the orders came last year, the Foundation continues to get orders and support women. “We are not just a skill development centre but our larger aim has to do with employment generation and upskilling the women in new areas,” says Londhe.
Last year, 127 women were roped in to market the products. “They were trained in marketing products on Facebook and IndiaMart, which was a new exposure for most of them,” says Londhe.
Suganthi Jayashankar, project coordinator, says they reach out to low-income groups.
“Most of our beneficiaries are from Perumbakkam as our centre is at the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board tenements and getting women to enrol for the free skill development programme was not a challenge. At our centre in Velachery, we target people staying around the locality and when lockdown restrictions were lifted last year we campaigned at the slums,” says Suganthi.
Jancy is one of the group leaders who has graduated to teaching other women at the centre. She was able to run her family during the lockdown with her income. “Last year, we had quite a number of orders to keep us occupied. Now that the demand is not as high as it was last year, we pass on the order request to those who do not have any other means of livelihood, single women and those who have lost an earning family member,” says Jancy.
The training ranges anywhere from one to two months. Those who do not have a sewing machine come to the centre and stitch.
Londhe says the Foundation purchased sewing machines for some women and many were sponsored through an EMI scheme. The biggest success of our skill development centres is that at least 10 have moved on to start their own units, says Londhe.
