Stree Shakti - Infinite Possibilities
Jaya Bhatt - Textile Design Consultant
Stree Shakti – is a women’s income generation program which was kick started by The Purkal Youth Development Society (PYDS) with a modest home training given to a few village women in Purkal village, Dehradun. Today Stree Shakti comprises of about 80 women members. The program formally began in the year 2004 and has gradually grown into a successful handicraft enterprise since then. Just this year they registered as their own individual entity apart from their parent organization, PYDS, and are learning to stand on their own.
Stree Sha
kti and Sarah Mitts, the founder of AWAZ Voice for Empowerment share a five year long relationship. Some of the first few products at AWAZ in fact came from the women artisans at Purkal, after Sarah spent 6 months living and working with the society in 2008. The organization has been working towards developing their organizational structure, working methodology, designs and products and AWAZ has been a constant supporter towards these efforts. I am thankful to AWAZ for having introduced me to Stree Shakti, and the women’s organization for giving me a chance to assist and use my skills and experiences to help them improvise on some of their areas of work.
My first visit to Stree Shakti was in the summer of 2010 along with Sarah. The experience was exhilarating. I have had earlier experiences of having worked with similar women’s cooperatives and artisan groups, but there was something fresh about Stree Shakti. The organization is still in a nascent stage and that gives a whole lot of room for changes, improvisations and developments. The people are cooperative and open to accepting new ideas and changes.
The various challenges that Stree Shakti faces at this stage is quite similar across most such organizations. The few problem areas that were discussed were mostly with regards to grou
p structure, monitoring, product development, raw material sourcing and many other day to day issues. Sarah has expressed quality concerns with their products and I've worked with them to improve upon that. Time is always a constraint in such projects, the discussions and debates are never ending, but yet we managed to arrive on various conclusions for design development, structural re-organization, sourcing database, marketing etc. Here, you can see a new sample for a jewelry and make-up organizer and felt Christmas ornaments we worked with the women to develop.
Over time, I’ve had a chance to work with Stree Shakti on most of these issues. Though, some of
the most important concerns included fabric and raw material sourcing, group organization and re-structuring and product development. Today, Stree Shakti has successfully managed to tie up with a few raw material suppliers of handmade fabrics, who specialize in vegetable dye block prints, which has helped them achieve a new and unique look for their products and promise a consistent supply. The women were re-organized into small groups and are led by a group leader, this has increased production capacity, better quality and a healthy competitive spirit amongst the artisans. The last of the many efforts up till now included design and product development, introducing new ideas to the existing product line that would help tap a larger market and increase the interest of returning buyers.
It was unbelievable how a new place and a set of complete strangers became so close and a consistent name on the daily phone call list!!! Even though my stay was short, just for about 5 days each time, the impact seemed large enough to have bonded me with Stree Shakti forever. I hope that all our combined efforts, in the form of discussions and actions will bear fruit for Stree Shakti and that both AWAZ and Stree Shakti will continue to share this close bond and go a long way together.
Jaya Bhatt - Textile Design Consultant
Stree Shakti – is a women’s income generation program which was kick started by The Purkal Youth Development Society (PYDS) with a modest home training given to a few village women in Purkal village, Dehradun. Today Stree Shakti comprises of about 80 women members. The program formally began in the year 2004 and has gradually grown into a successful handicraft enterprise since then. Just this year they registered as their own individual entity apart from their parent organization, PYDS, and are learning to stand on their own.
Stree Sha
kti and Sarah Mitts, the founder of AWAZ Voice for Empowerment share a five year long relationship. Some of the first few products at AWAZ in fact came from the women artisans at Purkal, after Sarah spent 6 months living and working with the society in 2008. The organization has been working towards developing their organizational structure, working methodology, designs and products and AWAZ has been a constant supporter towards these efforts. I am thankful to AWAZ for having introduced me to Stree Shakti, and the women’s organization for giving me a chance to assist and use my skills and experiences to help them improvise on some of their areas of work.My first visit to Stree Shakti was in the summer of 2010 along with Sarah. The experience was exhilarating. I have had earlier experiences of having worked with similar women’s cooperatives and artisan groups, but there was something fresh about Stree Shakti. The organization is still in a nascent stage and that gives a whole lot of room for changes, improvisations and developments. The people are cooperative and open to accepting new ideas and changes.
The various challenges that Stree Shakti faces at this stage is quite similar across most such organizations. The few problem areas that were discussed were mostly with regards to grou
p structure, monitoring, product development, raw material sourcing and many other day to day issues. Sarah has expressed quality concerns with their products and I've worked with them to improve upon that. Time is always a constraint in such projects, the discussions and debates are never ending, but yet we managed to arrive on various conclusions for design development, structural re-organization, sourcing database, marketing etc. Here, you can see a new sample for a jewelry and make-up organizer and felt Christmas ornaments we worked with the women to develop.Over time, I’ve had a chance to work with Stree Shakti on most of these issues. Though, some of
the most important concerns included fabric and raw material sourcing, group organization and re-structuring and product development. Today, Stree Shakti has successfully managed to tie up with a few raw material suppliers of handmade fabrics, who specialize in vegetable dye block prints, which has helped them achieve a new and unique look for their products and promise a consistent supply. The women were re-organized into small groups and are led by a group leader, this has increased production capacity, better quality and a healthy competitive spirit amongst the artisans. The last of the many efforts up till now included design and product development, introducing new ideas to the existing product line that would help tap a larger market and increase the interest of returning buyers.It was unbelievable how a new place and a set of complete strangers became so close and a consistent name on the daily phone call list!!! Even though my stay was short, just for about 5 days each time, the impact seemed large enough to have bonded me with Stree Shakti forever. I hope that all our combined efforts, in the form of discussions and actions will bear fruit for Stree Shakti and that both AWAZ and Stree Shakti will continue to share this close bond and go a long way together.
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