On Friday, Sarika S.V. is making flags for the ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ drive at a special livelihood unit attached to the Uzhamalakkal BUDS school for the differently abled funded by the Kudumbashree. Sarika’s 10-year-old son attends the school, as does the adult son of Prasobha S., the second member of the unit called ‘Lekshmi.’
Of the 30 Kudumbashree microenterprise units in the district that are involved in producing the Tricolour for flying in homes as part of ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign from August 13 to 15, Lekshmi is the only one attached to a BUDS school.
Sarika has been a Kudumbashree member for a decade and Prasobha even longer. Like many women with differently abled children, they could not go to work when their children attended school. As taking care of children with special needs largely falls on women, Sarika, Prasobha, and other mothers stayed at hand in case they were needed. The livelihood unit was started a year-and-a-half ago so as to provide these women an opportunity to earn a living while they waited for their wards at school.
Though there were five women in the unit to begin with, only Sarika and Prasobha are left now. The Kudumbashree district mission provided the women with a 100% subsidised loan for buying four machines and the raw material, including the cloth, for the bags. Some of what they earn now is pumped back in to purchase the cloth.
Cloth and paper bags
Though the unit mostly produces cloth bags, it make paper bags too. During school hours, Sarika and Prasobha manage to produce nearly 100 cloth bags a day. They are not able to make it to the school every day though. “If the children are not well, we do not come to work.”
Yet, the unit is not doing too bad between the two of them, says Sarika. “We are ready to give it all we have, and are determined to go ahead. We have machines at home, and if there is a deadline to meet, we take the work home and complete it whatever happens.”
Lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic was tough, and the unit was closed then, she recalls. But once the lockdown was lifted, they were back at the unit stitching away, even though the school itself was closed.
Help at hand
A student at the school used to be a huge support, till her marriage recently. Now, nearly eight BUDS school students help the women whichever way they can. And if there is an order, the school BUDS teacher Ajithakumari takes over one of the sewing machines and chips in. Some orders do come in, but mostly the women stitch the cloth bags and take it around to shops hoping they will not be refused.
For now though, there is an order to complete. Sarika and Prasobha are racing to stitch 900 big and 250 small national flags, in cloth and polyester mix, as part of the Kudumbashree district mission’s target to produce 1.5 lakh flags to hoist in homes, schools, and government institutions to mark the 75th Independence Day.
