The dedication of sewing trainer Sunita Verma is silently bringing
change in Bihar’s Paschim Champaran.
“Conservative
thinking is still rooted in our society. Women are only expected to do the
household chores. Every profession here is dominated by males…but time is
changing…this is probably happening for the first time…the number of woman
tailors in the town is increasing,” says Pooja Devi, 20. “Even if I am not
allowed to earn from this [sewing], I will be able to save some money by
stitching my own clothes or window curtains,” she adds.
Pooja
was married two years ago. “No one except of my husband is supportive while I
am learning this,” she says while explaining the restricted environment in her
in-laws’ home. Sewing Machine Dealers in Chennai Her in-laws had warned her against learning sewing skills but
she was determined. For Pooja, however, the art of sewing is her only means to
uplift her situation. She is staying with her parents for a few months, and
devoting extra hours to finish training before she travels back to her in-laws’
home in Sikta, 38 kilometres away from her parents’ house in Pathri Ghat
locality of Bettiah.
Pooja
attends Sunita Verma’s Kritika
Silai Bunai Kendra, a sewing training centre in the crowded hamlet
of Gulab Baug of Paschim Champaran, northwestern district of Bihar. More than
700 women have been trained so far. Verma has been running this centre since
1990. In 2002, it was affiliated to the District Industries Centre. The centre
now runs three batches of four people each- lined for a three month course.
Sunita
Verma tells NewsClick that
the local people don’t want women to step out of the house. She explains, “If
women will start coming out of their homes, their interaction with the world
outside will increase. If this happens, these narrow-minded people will face
unsurmountable difficulty in pushing women back in chains.”
“My
family”, she says, “was the main pillar behind this initiative.” Verma, who
hails from Siwan district of Bihar was educated in Palamu which is now in
Jharkhand. The relocation of her family to Hyderabad where Verma’s father was a
manager in a paper printing company helped her in attaining progressive ideas.
She recounts, “The atmosphere in Hyderabad was very different from what we saw
in Bihar. People were progressive; women were flocking to jobs. That was quite
unique for me.”
In
1986, Sunita was married to Prabhat Kumar Verma, a lawyer in Paschim
Champaran’s district court. Her father-in-law late Dinesh Verma was then a
senior advocate in the district court, who first proposed the idea to Sunita to
open a sewing centre to train young girls which might help them in future.
There are volumes of judgement of various high courts lining the walls of the room – which belonged to her father-in-law – the man who converted his reading room into the sewing centre to make Sunita’s dream a reality.
As
the conversation proceeds, the dulcet clanks of a sewing machine resound. Roma
Kumari, 18, is flouncing the sewing needles on a circular frame fitted on a
piece of cloth. On being asked what she is doing with the embroidery hoop, she
says, “It is a table cover, I have made this patch-work. The design carved out
of a polka dot fabric represents a flower.”
Roma,
the eldest of her siblings, studies in Class 11 in Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav
College. She wishes to pursue a career in the field of fashion designing but at
present, she has no idea of the professional course or degree that may lead her
to the dream job. It is her mother Vinita Devi, who has sparked the love
for kashidakari [a
form of needlework prevalent in Bihar] in her. Vinita Devi, too had learnt
sewing at this centre and now runs a ladies tailoring shop.
Apart
from Roma and Pooja, there are two other trainees– Tamanna and Rubi– in Sunita
Verma’s workshop in this session. Rubi cycles from Jagdishpur which is ten
kilometres away. Tamanna is in first year of graduation while Rubi is set to
graduate next year.
Several
graduates of the training centre run their own shops. Some are also managing
training centres like Verma’s. One of them is Bhagwati, who has been training
enthusiasts for years in the Brindavan Ashram area of Paschim Champaran.
Bhagwati says, “I took one year of training at Sunita madam’s centre. Then I
thought of opening my own centre where I could teach others how to operate
sewing machine. In remote rural areas like Bagaha or Brindavan, this is very
much needed. Even an illiterate can earn enough with this skill.”
NO HELP FROM GOVERNMENT
Untrained
people, Sunita says, come to the centre asking for certificates in exchange of
bribe. “These fraudsters then are recruited to run the government training
centres…you can expect the quality of their training,” she express her doubts
about a scam. “One lady came for the certificate claiming that she knew the
technicalities of sewing, but when asked, she couldn’t stitch even the basic
dimensions of blouse and petticoat.”
“Government
has failed to execute basic skill development programmes [like that of
sewing],” she claims. “Government could step up the condition of women in rural
and suburban areas with these basic utilities. India could become a leading
exporter of manufactured clothes but it is their exorbitant ignorance which is
worsening the situation of women in the country.Will posters and slogans do any
help?,” she questions.
She
thinks that sewing is the easiest gateway to employ women in small towns and
villages. “It is time for the country to push the young generation towards
self-employment. Government can also undergo private-public partnership with
established cloth manufacturers to open sewing centres to stitch clothes. This
will be feasible for the company as well as employees,” she says.
She
adds, “A straight stitch sewing machine costs between Rs. 2,500 and Rs. 4,000,
the government could at least provide this to people coming from poor
socio-economic backgrounds.”
FROM SEWING TO TECHNICAL COURSES
Sunita
while turning the pages of an attendance diary says, “The number of trainees
have decreased in recent years.” She attributes this trend to the technological
advancement, adding, “The computer software courses in the town are attracting
youngsters of this generation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment