Women Stitching Second Chances: Usha Silai School Transforms Lives
Life throws impossible challenges, but a needle and thread can stitch broken dreams back together. Watch how Usha Silai School create safe havens for widows, survivors, and single mothers like Marifat from Srinagar, Jyoti from Ujjain, and Vimla from Rajasthan's Sikar
In Rajasthan's Neemki village, Sikar district, 35-year-old Vimla Devi collaborates with her husband Mewaram at their shared tailoring setup, adjusting a salwar kameez pattern on her Usha machine acquired after 2021's Reengus training. Widowed young with children Ankit and Monika, her shift from farm labor to monthly ?8,000-?10,000 income now covers private schooling, as she teaches locals and warns against child marriages that stole her own childhood.
Vimla beams with pride at a community gathering, certificate in hand, surrounded by women she's trained in fresh designs, her journey from 10-year-old bride to respected entrepreneur highlighted by Regional Manager Mohan Lal's insights on Usha's mindset-shifting residential program. Remarried and empowered since 2022, she and Mewaram divide tasks to sustain their business, proving nine days of skill-building can rewrite narratives of loss into legacies of dignity and village-wide uplift.
In Srinagar's Nowhatta, Marifat stands resilient in her boutique near Jamia Masjid, threading a needle with steady hands after her husband's sudden death in 2023 left her widowed with two young children. Through Usha Silai School's nine-day residential training via University of Kashmir's social work program, she transformed grief into grit-earning ?8,000-?15,000 monthly, stitching not just garments but her path to independence and self-respect.
Marifat shares a heartfelt moment with her 4.5-year-old daughter, who still believes her father sends money from afar, as they sit amid bolts of vibrant fabric in their home-turned-workspace. From double MA dreams deferred to embracing stitching over unstable jobs, Marifat's leap of faith in the Usha program rebuilt her confidence, allowing her to employ four women and vow to help 10-20 more rise from despair.
Near Ujjain in Kalukhedi village, Jyoti Khare, 37, operates her Usha Silai School from a modest corner of her home, demonstrating blouse stitching to eager trainees while wearing her mangalsutra as a shield against judgment. Married at 14 and divorced in 2012 after years of abuse, her 2023 nine-day training turned survival gigs-like e-rickshaw driving and cooking-into a stable enterprise training villagers and fulfilling her dream of city expansion.
Jyoti reflects during a village training session, her face lit with newfound purpose as she guides women on gown designs, echoing her escape from 14 years of locked doors and beatings. Now balancing household duties with earnings that fund her three children's education, she embodies Usha's gift of "gharelu kaam" that keeps her rooted at home yet soaring toward a recognized identity, free from wandering for odd jobs.
NDTV in partnership with Luminous has launched an awareness campaign ‘Be A Bijli Donor’ to promote the idea of ‘save power for more power’. The idea is to conserve energy today in order to get more power tomorrow.
We inherently know that saving energy results in low energy bills, but we also need to understand that a unit of energy saved today makes it available for people still living in the dark or facing regular power cuts.
Saving power or conserving energy is about knowing the sources of energy, and areas of wastage and thereby eliminating these through technology and lifestyle changes. For instance, a 100 W (Watt) incandescent (ICL) bulb can be replaced with a 9 W LED bulb offering similar performance in terms of light output, but at far lower consumption of energy.
While a 100 W ICL bulb, used for four hours a day, consumes 146 units of energy per year, a 9 W LED bulb requires only 13.5 units per year. Clearly, switching to LED is a smart choice as it provides the same output while consuming 90 per cent less energy.
The focus of the campaign is to instill the idea of ‘save power for more power’ and in order to do so, the initiative will create awareness about energy efficient products and services, smart ways to reduce power consumption, alternate sources of energy like solar energy and the need to conserve energy. The idea is to address the rising need for energy conservation in India.
As part of the campaign, we will highlight the stories of individuals and organisations who are championing the cause of energy conservation by switching to renewable sources of energy, adopting innovations to reduce energy consumption while enjoying the same output. The initiative will provide a platform for all stakeholders to share their ideas and work towards the common goal of, ‘Save power for more power’.