“There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing.”
-Swami Vivekananda
Women empowerment is one of the main goals for us here at Project Purkul. It is an ideal we take very seriously, possessing an attitude befitting the weight it needs and deserves. The treatment of women across the globe is a contentious issue, much less the mentality people hold in developing nations like India. We have much to learn in this regard, and Project Purkul is doing its best in best here in its centres to foster a more healthy and balanced culture for women and men.
The typical family in rural India is as follows: the man of the house will do odd jobs to make by, and that’s it. The woman is a homemaker by default. There aren’t many families many with sizable savings, and the condition of the families’ finances are in tatters. This was also true for Village Purkul. But that was where the artisan women of village Purkul decided to take things into their own hands. Many of the artisans had been estranged due to the suddenness of the covid epidemic, as well as the lockdown protocols forcing everyone to split up. They were unable to work their previous schedule, being separated, and no products could be made like that. But that did not stop them from trying something new.
The women artisans banded together and contacted Amrit Marbaniang Burrett (Second name), and that is how Project Purkul came to be. We began to take orders for the women artisans, slowly building up a clientele. After being stranded for so long, they finally managed to have real tangible income again, as the sales grew. This had greatly helped them, in both family stability and social standing as earning members of the family. We also helped in taking care of their children, as they worked in the workshops, by giving them basic education. In collaboration with Gyan Day Vatika, we educate the children of the women artisan properly as to ensure their future.
This is Sunita Di, one of our crown jewels. She is incredibly skilled at the craft of textile design and leads the team in our premier project of making the troublemakers quilt, and pioneers many brand new designs. She is a role model for all of us in both work ethic and skill.
Many of the women artisans had a substandard standing in their own families before they joined Project Purkul. Their husbands would treat them in a distasteful manner, treatment no one would say befits a modern society. But as soon as they started bringing in a good amount of money here through their work here at Project Purkul, this all changed. The husbands had to abandon their tyrannical and regressive ways as they were forced to acknowledge what the women brought to the table. This has changed the dynamic between the men and women here for the better, and empowered the women to allow them to live to their fullest without being held back by the shackles of our glorious, yet halting past.
- Sidhant Tomar