Kushalta Ke Kadam: Adopt A Silai School And Help Transform The Lives Of Rural Women

Several women around the country benefited from USHA's innovative ‘Adopt A Silai School' campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world had shut down and lakhs of people were trying to make ends meet. Because of the chances offered by the initiative, the 54 Silai Schools that were adopted during the course of the programme were able to weather the pandemic. Here's how the campaign has impacted the lives of women in need across the country's rural areas.

The USHA Silai School program started its ?Adopt a Silai School' initiative in 2015-2016.

The aim of the initiative is to tap potential individual donors, who may live anywhere in the world, but who believe in the cause of the socio-economic empowerment of rural Indian women.

Mamta Kumari is a Silai Hero and a beneficiary of the 'Adopt A Silai School' campaign from Gondia in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh district.

Mamta Kumari's days were spent in the kitchen and on the farm, assisting her husband. However, in 2019, she enrolled in silai training, and things began to improve.

She received a seven-day training from USHA and opened her own Silai School which was sponsored by Rakesh Sreekanth, Non-Resident Indian (NRI) in San Jose, California.

Mamta is now able to manage her household expenses in a better way and is helping other women in her community to become independent as well.

Mamata said that the funds and the support received from Mr Sreekanth have helped her and the women in her community who are training in her Silai School but she believes that with more hard work and more support, she will be able to train more women.

Priyanka Devi from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, is also a beneficiary of the USHA Adopt A Silai School programme.

According to Priyanka, earlier women from her village used to travel to the city to get their clothes stitched, but now she stitches clothes for them, so they have to travel less and it is also helping her to earn a livelihood.

There was a time when it was becoming difficult for Priyanka and her husband to pay for their children's education. The issues of daily expenditure are now a thing of the past, thanks to her Silai School.

Shradda Devi, a 55-year-old widow from Hazaribagh district has become a role model for many as she turned around her life by starting her own Silai School.

USHA Silai School helped Shradda Devi start a new chapter of her life.

Today, Shradda Devi is very well known in her community as someone who does her own stitching and sewing work, and also trains anyone who comes to her for learning.

She is making every effort to empower as many women as she can, in her community, by training them in sewing and stitching.

Adopt a Silai School

Do you want to be a part of the huge change that Usha Silai School is bringing about in the lives of millions of rural women? With just a simple click of a button, you can now contribute towards the opening of an Usha Silai School or support various other aspects of the school.

About the Initiative

Kushalta Ke Kadam, an initiative by NDTV and USHA, aims at empowering women from rural India and encourages them to become entrepreneurs by taking up sewing and training others in their respective communities. Since 2011 Usha Silai Campaign has trained more than 3.95 lakh rural women within five years, with 17,000 Silai schools, spanning over 9272 Indian villages in India.

Kushalta Ke Kadam in Season 4 has returned with new goals and vision. The new season will witness the establishment of the new cluster in Kashmir, apart from the existing four clusters setup last year. The women from volatile Kashmir will work with well-known fashion designer Rohit Bal and get an unique opportunity to learn from him and make clothes for him. The work done by the Silai School women will be presented at Lakme Fashion week 2019.

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