Usha Partners With CRPF Family Welfare Association To Upskill Women

The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), one of the world's largest paramilitary forces is responsible for a variety of internal security and law enforcement duties in India. It serves in counter-insurgency operations and sensitive conflict zones. While the men and women are away on the call of duty, the CRPF Family Welfare Association (CWA), plays a vital role in providing a support structure to the families of these brave personnel.

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Among the aims and objectives of the CRPF Family Welfare Association is to skill the CRPF wives and give them a sense of accomplishment. It is this common objective that brought CRPF and Usha together for a valuable partnership.

Talking about establishing a strategic partnership with the Indian Armed Forces and CRPF, Mary Rupa Tete, Vice President of Usha Social Services said,

The collaboration focuses on sewing training for the wives of army personnel as well as women residing in the border areas, empowering them with the essentials of sewing and stitching. Thereby offering them an alternate means of livelihood to earn for their families.

This skill development program is now a rewarding partnership at 12 locations, one of them being the CRPF's base in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. 40-50 women underwent an assessment programme following which 15 of them were selected for sewing training. USHA provided one of its best trainers to further train these 15 women.

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Pravati Khuntia, Sewing School Inspectress explained,

These 15 women had some knowledge of stitching, and were given advanced training. The course material was designed accordingly for them. The training was provided on advanced machines, like the RSM machine and UJ machine. We focused more on uniforms, and ladies' garments, designer blouses, frocks and salwar suits.

Along with this, women were taught how to make items of home furnishing, like cushion covers and bags.

The CRPF Family Welfare Association in partnership with USHA provided a sewing machine to each of the women here. This was an advanced level production training of the selected Silai heroes and for 15 days they followed a set syllabus with targets and goals to be achieved and a level of proficiency to be attained. Since the inception of this training programme, every year 15 women have been trained in this manner. So far, in three phases, Usha in association with CWA has trained 546 women in 19 Group centres. And in the current phase of training, 14 new centres are being opened to train 252 women across India.

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Talking about Usha's partnership with CRPF, Ms Khuntia said,

Our journey with the CRPF has been exceptional, since the start. The women coming here for training seem interested, and it feels good to see that. The aim is to enhance the sewing skills of trainees in making ladies' garments and stitching CRPF uniforms to the level of perfection.

The women of CRPF are learning a new thing each day. For some, the training has been a utilisation of spare time while for others it has presented an opportunity to make a name for themselves.

Sujata Khandayatrai gets free from household chores by 10 o'clock. She uses her leisure time to stitch and sew. Similarly, Nirupama Parida, one of the trainees from Usha Silai School in Bhubaneswar utilises her spare time in stitching. She said,

I get a lot of free time. When the men are not at home, we are idle, and it gets very boring. My children have grown up, so in my spare time, I thought of stitching. There is no point wasting one's time with mobile phones, or chatting here and there. It's better to stitch something.

This is not the only centre. The CRPF in partnership with USHA has established training and production centres in 19 different CRPF bases for the wives and widows of CRPF personnel. So far 543 women have been trained and certified from various centres in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, and Tamil Nadu, to name a few.

With the partnership between the CRPF and Usha growing in strength and numbers, there will be more stories of hope and empowerment that will continue to unfold here.

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