The aim of the society is to sustain the community’s progress. The focus is on health, Nutrition, education, and employability, particularly of the women and the girl child.
There are three important thrust areas:

1. Enhance the importance of the woman in the family and in the management of the community.
2. Use economic empowerment to erase differences among people on the basis of castes and religion.
3. To make the empowerment of the woman the basis of good practices in population management, health practices and environmental concerns.

The women are divided into seven help groups and all the sale proceeds are used for their benefit. Chinni Swamy works as a chief Designer and devotes all her time for the benfit of thesociety. She works on a volutry basis and do not take any compensation for that.

This location was merely because the founders came to live here.

This is a backward rural area in the foothills of the Himalayas and several villages here lack infrastructure and the standard of living of many is low. Job opportunities are limited and agriculture in the Hills is not easy. The levels of health care and nourishment are low and the women suffer most. The development of the children was affected due to poor pre and post natal care. We felt that unless the women were empowered the future generations and the Home would not grow into the future. We believed that the women were the best bet for transforming the mind set in any Home and hence decided to focus on women and the Girl child.

We needed to provide the women an independent means of income and reduce their dependence on the men folk. We needed to give her a better status in the family so that her voice is heard.

In this bid we began with a project that made Crispies for the market. Although the products were well accepted there were difficulties due to limited shelf life. Also the designer products that we now create provide an opportunity to the artist in the Founder to better the lives of others.

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Over 150 women have passed through this training and growth exercise over the past five years. Some of them have married and moved ahead into other communities. A few others have had to leave due to a new born. But everyone now knows that there is a way to live if there is a learnt skill and some dedicated effort. The Project has more than paid off in this manner.

The average income earned by a woman has now grown significantly in this area. Domestics are no longer available for measly salaries. Women are no longer required to submit to bad service conditions.

The women in this community have now a status of their own in their Homes. They are respected by their in-laws and by their husbands. Often the woman bring in equal or more income into the Home.

There is better appreciation of the need for a balanced diet and the children have support  for activities connected with learning. More importantly the woman eats better.

Women get to interact with each other in the work place and so are able to get counsel from their friends on problems that they face. Also, since they no longer waste time gossiping their sense of self respect has grown.

The thrift account that their Self Help Group manages is now big enough to help them meet urgent need for cash. This is a big comfort since they no longer need to look to a village money lender and suffer his usurious terms for meeting compelling needs.  Indeed the thrift account is now used to buy a new saree or a gift for a wedding.

The involvement is total since they are the ones who benefit in the process of this work. Two of them were trained in the Polytechnic for a year in Textile Designing and they became the first supervisors. Confidence gave them the desire to study and so some of them, with our help, completed their 12th through the NOS. This has opened out other employment opportunities. There are others who advanced their lives through learning of English and computers and so have gone ahead.

New recruits need to be trained in the skill and this is now possible since one of the locals has become skilled enough to undertake this programme. They are now mature enough to select their own Group Leaders and cooperate with each other in going to the Bank for managing their accounts.

Their conservative attitudes would never have permitted them to travel outside the village to participate in the sales effort. Now many are willing to go into the city or to Delhi or Bombay to undertake sales at Exhibitions. This would never have been possible without the families gaining confidence in the efforts of the Society and then permitting their women folk.

The presence of the Early Childhood Learning Centre helps them care for their little ones more easily. The community appreciates and learns from the nutrition and child care practices that we follow at the centre.

The initial effort of developing a product, building an organisation, setting up a brand and marketing it, training a work force called for a lot of investment. The working capital and the development needs of the enterprise have had to be collected from donors but all this was possible due to the help of several friends. We are currently in the process of doubling our turnover this year. Like any other enterprise this operation also calls for the infusion of capital and dependence on debt. While the capital that was needed was replaced by donations, thanks to the faith in the quality of the product that was being marketed, the enterprise has grown. It has won its first export orders and hopefully price realisations will improve and permit the building of a capital base needed for expansion.

The key to the project has been the design elements which are highly appreciated. These have been largely free to the Society since the promoter artist assisted by an artist assistant in recent times, provides these free.

With another year of commercial activity the Society will become self sustaining and then its viability will not be in question.

However, we still collect donations for a Women Welfare Fund. This is to guarantee to the participating women a certain minimum Health care and provide them further with a balanced meal every day. Donations appear possible since donors see that the entire selfless effort is meant to uplift the woman and make her the centre of the Universe.

Undoubtedly it can be replicated by us in another location if given the necessary land and building. Significant initial training costs, need for a transport for the women in this hilly area, the presence of a Child Care centre are all important. The collection of working capital from donors is the way to go forward since scale is essential to achieve a place under the sun. Depending on the women to build their own capital is no answer since they are very vulnerable and the existing government schemes for the purpose look at very small figures.

These needs are not astronomical and within the capability of CSR of Corporates. The future is to interest Corporates in plans for development and Social growth. Individuals like us find it very difficult to win their support. There is too much to do and too few to help in the 24 hour working day.

We already enjoy respect for our design capabilities and supporting our growth is meaningful. Later we could target another area. The investment cost per woman employed is insignificant and should be considered worthwhile in terms of the addition to the happiness of the community.

As for others wishing to replicate this model it is entirely possible if the artist would agree to donate his design effort for a period of time.

The most important need however is to train local women in management, inventory control, finance, accounting, marketing etc. so that the future of the operation does not depend on the continued support of the promoter.

We today employ about 85 women. Attrition rates are high with unmarried women getting married and newlyweds tending to get a child. We wish to grow the number of  women working with us to a 120 before the end of March 2012.

We are preparing a Manual of Instructions for the micro management of the work and for ensuring quality. We have recently employed a well qualified Production manager and a designer. They will need to be paid better. Equipments are needed to upgrade the quality of our work. This is limited by the capital available.

We also need to invest in both marketing and sales efforts. There is no budget for advertisement and our money for marketing is tenuous. We are looking for support on these counts.

Subject to these problems, we hope to reach a turnover of Rs. 50 Lacs this year. We have been accepted by very prestigious Exhibition agencies and do therefore hope to reach the niche which is our market.

Investments will also make it possible to develop new designs and products. We need capital for all this and we are hoping to approach donors for the purpose.We may add that we just received a donation that has helped us acquire a new bus. This will help our reaching more villages and collecting women in need of this earning possibility.

The Chief Designer and the Secretary of the Society, who were responsible for the initiative, work entirely free and are keen to not only get this Brand well established but also do all that is necessary to transfer the competence of managing the organisation to the women of the community as quickly as possible. This is important so that the enterprise survives into the future without regard to the ability of the founders to continue to contribute.

The emphasis at present is on instilling a sense of beauty, perfection and quality in each of the women working so that these essentials are strongly instilled in every one of the women working in the project.The women make a very fine happy family at the present time. There is a lot of companionship. Often one would see a woman other than the mother taking care of a toddler so that the lady may be able to handle her work. These women enjoy being together and it is great fun to watch all them dress up and attend a wedding in the village together in the course of a working day. Once a year they get to experience an outing together, in an all women group. The sense of freedom and of belonging to a happy community is the best reward that the entire effort has yielded to all concerned.