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Livelihoods and income generation activities have been central to the work of eCoexist. Since its inception, eCoexist has reached out to a range of vulnerable and challenged groups to offer them opportunities to earn. We have worked with women farmers, women prisoners, special needs groups and also womens self help groups. Last week, the eCoexist team gathered in the village of Ahwalwadi, to celebrate two years of work with the village women.
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Ahwalwadi is a small village (486.79 hectares) located in the Pune District of Maharashtra. The village is home to 1610 residents belonging to 362 households, and 50% of the population are female. The majority community in this village consist of the Awhales, who belong to the Maratha caste. Located at the edge of Pune, Ahwalwadi is right next to the burgeoning suburb of Wagholi, which has become a major industrial center, due to the Pune Ahmednagar highway.
Ahwalwadi faces all the typical issues that a village at the edge of a major metropolis confronts. Development brings in infrastructure but in a chaotic haphazard manner. For eg. bore wells are the major source of water as the village does not get piped water from the corporation and sewage systems are still not in place. Roads have been concretized, albeit without thought of pavements or topographical planning. Initially an agricultural settlement, the village has seen a lot of sale and conversion of agricultural lands into non agricultural purposes. A hospital and school arrived in Ahwalwadi but only up to the primary level. Solid waste management is non existent and the streets are strewn with plastic wastes.
As housing in Wagholi is cheaper, immigrants from other towns rent apartments here to be able to work in the city of Pune. The demographic profile of Wagholi and to a lesser degree, Ahwalwadi, has changed drastically over the last decades.
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Most of the women of Ahwalwadi have worked as labour on the farms that surround their settlement. Accustomed to hard labour, the women were in search of alternative sources of income, when the farms started to get sold for development. However, with young children and homes to manage, most women wanted to be able to earn from home rather than look for jobs in the industries at Wagholi.
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Our introduction to Awhalwadi happened through Suvarna Kadre, a dynamic 23 year old who started to come to our office in the city to collect cloth bags to stitch at home. This involved a two hour commute by public transport for her. Two years ago, when we were running out of space to continue our work in the city, Suvarna spontaneously and enthusiastically requested us to start a workshop in her village , knowing that there were many women who would like to do the same work but could not afford the commute. Today she is leading the cloth bag sewing activities at Awhalwadi and we rely heavily on her leadership and organization skills to be able to handle this work successfully.
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eCoexist set up its cloth bag production unit in Awhalwadi on Jan 15, 2017. During the past two years, women with a basic skill set in sewing have been taught how to produce high quality cloth bags based on the designs and specifications of the customers. We have trained between 25 to 30 women and at any point around 18 women are actively producing stocks. On an average a woman can earn around 5000 Rs per month from the work provided by eCoexist depending on the amount of time she is willing to offer. To add to their activities, and after experiencing the commitment and drive of the team, this year we also involved them in production of natural Holi colours.
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Holi Color Production at Awhalwadi.
Left to right: Vitthal, Shivali, Priyanka, Suvarna, and Maya
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Needless to say, we had many reasons to celebrate the two year anniversary of our team at Awhalwadi. The idea for a celebration came from the women themselves and the entire city eCoexist team were invited to join the gathering. We gathered at a beautiful village temple which provided a perfect venue with peaceful surroundings and ample space for us to interact with each other. It was decided that after two years of successful operations, it was time to spread the news about our activities to the rest of the village. We invited the Sarpanch Smt Lalita Awhale to the event so that we could share with her what we were working on. More importantly, it was an opportunity for the women of the village to share their experiences with her. The event was presided over by our elders at eCoexist.
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The Sarpanch of Awhalwadi being felicitated by eCoexist at the gathering
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Soon after everyone had gathered, we had a round of introductions. Instead of regular self-introductions, we requested each person to introduce somebody else by identifying their strengths and what they appreciate about them. Not only did this bring out everyone from their initial shyness and hesitation, it also created a very positive energy in the gathering.
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After the Sarpanch arrived, we encouraged the women to talk about their experience working with eCoexist and the difference they experience in their lives. Several women were excited to talk about how making cloth bags for eCoexist have them access to additional income while looking after their families at home. This enabled them to step out of their homes with confidence, and not have to rely solely on their husband’s income. Some of the women spoke openly and confidently requested help from the sarpanch. Many of them had tears in their eyes as they spoke about how they were overcoming their fears.
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CAMPAIGNS AND AWARENESS RAISING
While the women of Ahwalwadi have been creating cloth bags for the UseMeAgain campaign to spread the message of reuse to the city of Pune and further, their own village continues to use plastic carry bags. At the event, we discussed the possibility of making Ahwalwadi free of plastic carry bags completely as the bags have been made by the women themselves.
However this will also require an awareness raising campaign and we used the educational posters we have created to have a discussion around the subject. These posters will be taken to the local school and also posted across the village to generate a discussion around the topic. The women will be engaged with the campaign in this way.
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SKILL DEVELOPMENT
We are now in the process of assessing additional skills that the women may have that can be put to use to help them earn. Women who have crochet or macrame skills have expressed a desire to create products with these. Others have asked to be trained in more handicraft activities.
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EQUIPMENT UPGRADES
Some of the women who have fairly old and slow hand driven machines have requested help to upgrade their equipment. eCoexist will be helping them get soft loans for this purpose from the local banks - we are also looking to raise funds for them via crowd funding and invite contributions.
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ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAINING
As we watch the women step forward, we are also able to identify those who have a natural ability to be entrepreneurs. Slowly, we will start training them to handle the organisational and logistical side of the production as well with an aim to make them independent of us eventually. Those who are willing to step out of their comfort zones are invited to accompany us to set up stalls and sell at exhibitions. This introduces them to the requirements of marketing.
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Once a month we will be holding personality development and confidence building activities with the women. This will be led by one of our elders, Dr Madhuri Sheth, who has been working on womens rights for several decades.
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The event provided the entire eCoexist team an opportunity to meet the residents of Awhalwadi and hear about their experience and the positive impact on their lives. It gave us an opportunity to see them in their own social environments and appreciate some of the social challenges they may be facing.
We welcome donations and contributions to this work - if you would like to participate in our efforts in any way please contact us at [email protected]
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