Tribal women stitch a new future in Gujarat’s Dang

The issue of economic empowerment of tribal communities has gained significance in recent years due to the several challenges they face, especially when it comes to livelihood. 

Dang district in Gujarat has 98 percent tribal population. Their primary occupation is agriculture. With increase in household size and fragmented land holding, farming has been turning into an unviable source of livelihood, leading to an increase in distress migration. Income from the forest has also reduced due to several factors such as land fragmentations, climate change and new forest laws.

Considering the challenges that the community – particularly women – faced, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme India (AKRSPI) decided to promote non-farm enterprises in every village of Dang district. The AKRSPI team in Dang is working for the development of these marginalised communities through various integrated development activities, one of them being enterprise development. 

The organisation has so far promoted more than 250 enterprises in the district, including collective and individual businesses. One of the collective enterprises is a tailoring unit with 14 stakeholders that is functioning well.

With an aim to develop an apparel manufacturing cluster that can fulfil the local community’s needs, the organisation promoted two more tailoring units as collective enterprises in Dokpatal and Chinchili villages.

Also Read | Business becoming the buzzword for tribal youth in Gujarat

Creating alternate means of livelihood

In Dokpatal and Chinchili, people are highly deprived and under-skilled, which is the reason for their poor standard of living. The villages are remote and so availing basic needs becomes expensive for the residents. While men migrate to nearby towns to look for odd jobs, women toil as farm labour, based on availability of work. When there is no farm work, they just do the household jobs, due to lack of alternate livelihood options. 

With an aim to provide women a dignified and skilled-based livelihood, the AKRSPI team in Dang decided to train them in tailoring. During their visits to the villages, the AKRSPI team identified local women who understood the concept of a group enterprise. These resource persons could also convince other women to join. 

All the women were invited for a meeting for concept seeding, which is an important process since it helps the participants gain clarity about the intervention and develop a shared vision. 

Forming a collective enterprise

The women who understood the importance and benefit of a group enterprise and showed interest were identified as the early adopters. They were invited for individual counselling. Some peer guidance was also provided. Yet, many women were not clear about the purpose of a collective enterprise. Another meeting was arranged to clear their doubts.  After they got a clear understanding of how a collective enterprise functions, it was time to form the association. 

The women settled on a name for the association, and decided to have monthly meetings. Then all the members were registered as shareholders and bylaws were drawn up. The women pledged to abide by the bylaws.

Also Read | What stops rural enterprises from growth and prosperity?

When the idea of the group enterprise was first promoted, the women had been told that it would have an executive committee and they would have to choose the leaders. Yet, the women were reluctant to come forward to take on leadership roles. Only two of them, who had been active from the beginning, were ready. They convinced a few others, and finally the executive committee was formed.

Learning the ropes

After the enterprise was formed, two tailoring units were launched, with 26 members from poor economic backgrounds. The women were trained for a month to stitch a few clothing items that could be sold at the local market.

They were also taken to the nearest market where raw materials can be bought at a cheaper price. It was the first time they had stepped out of the house on their own. 

At the market, the members were asked to select the raw materials and negotiate the price. But they found it quite difficult to negotiate. In order to make the purchasing process comfortable for the women, they were taken on two more exposure visits. Now the members are confident in communicating with the vendors.

Another training programme was organised to train them to calculate the unit cost of an item so that they could determine the selling price.

Also Read | Broadening domains for micro-enterprises in rural India

Collective women power

The members were ready in all respects to start their enterprise. But the challenge was to receive continuous orders so that the business could grow. It was important to generate the demand from the local market itself. So each member had a target of meeting with minimum five local vendors at Waghai, a nearby town. 

This strategy worked. The units got their first order of 1,200 bags, 60 night gowns and 50 frocks. The women members worked to provide their best services so they could get continuous orders. They understood the locally available opportunity and now they are working continuously to cater fully to the local market.

Future plans

An immediate plan that the women have is to construct walls for their tailoring unit, which is currently a roofed structure open on the sides. They will invest a major portion of their income for this.

The women of both the tailoring units have bigger plans for the future. They intend to bag the order for school uniforms from the gram panchayat for the next academic session. They plan to submit an application at the panchayat office to initiate the process. 

Also Read | Indigenous community in Dang fights for land rights

Apart from this, they intend to visit Waghai regularly and connect with local tailors in the town to source orders. In the next 2-3 years, the women plan to develop market linkages with urban centres too.

The lead image at the top shows the tailoring unit at Dokpatal, jointly-owned by tribal women (Photo by Gulshan Bhatt) 

Gulshan Bhatt is a development professional working for poverty eradication through enterprise development.