This Woman Is Stitching A Better Future Her Family And Other Women In Her Village

It may be a struggle to find her village on the map of India and she is no celebrity, but 38-year old Suva Kunwar is a trendsetter and many in her village are proud of her and want to emulate her. She of course didn't start out aiming to be the role model she is today. In fact she was forced to venture out of the confines of her home by a basic need - to feed her family. Today her success is inspiring many women in her village to become independent and earn for themselves. Bhelu ki Dhani in the Bikaner district of Rajasthan is situated on the Indo-Pak border. Like many villages of this region opium addiction is rampant and bane of existence for many. In Bhelu ki Dhani too, it is a common sight to find men aged 25-40 addicted to opium and tobacco.
  
Suva Kunwar's husband Bhairo Singh too has been an addict for 16 years. His addiction led to the ruin of the family. Children were forced to drop out of school and fend for work. Addiction caused Bhairo Singh's health to deteriorate and he stopped working completely. The family was totally trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty and debt. Opium expenditure of Suva's household was nearly Rs7000 every month. The medical bills of Bhairo's treatment another Rs3000 every month. Though her 10-year old son had started working after quitting school, the earnings were too meagre to ward off the frequent visits from money lenders, forcing Suva to sell her jewellery and a portion of her ancestral property. 
Even today women in villages like Bhelu ki Dhani don't step out to work. But Suva had no option. She had to break the taboo to feed her family. 

"Farming wasn't an option as due to arid land it becomes difficult for a woman like me to cultivate fields, hence I decided to try my hand at stitching." says Suva

She enrolled herself into the Usha Sillai programme, an initiative which creates job opportunities in rural areas and help women become financially independent. So far the programme has established 10,185 Sillai schools and empowered 51,000 women across India. At the Sillai school, Suva was trained to stitch and use sewing machines. On completing her training she was given a free sewing machine. Soon she started her own Sillai school to pass on her learnings and use her newly acquired skill to earn and run her household.

"Earlier I didn't take many orders to stitch garments because people paid only Rs50 per cloth. However, after getting the right skills more orders started to flow in and I raised my fee," says Suva.
Starting with three students, Suva now has over 50 students. Training these students helps Suva earn nearly 6000 per month. Apart from training others, Suva also stitches different kinds of clothes using trendy patterns. For women she stitches salwar suits, ghagras, kurtis, koti-ghagras and for children she makes pants and kurtas.

It has been long and arduous journey for Suva. Today her hard-work, patience and persistence is a source of inspiration for other young girls in her village. 

"Suva Ma'am has groomed and prepared us to stand on our feet. She runs her house single handedly and this is truly an inspiration for me," says Durga Devi, one of her students.

Suva has now finally put her struggles behind her. Apart from her classes and stitching clothes, she has stabilised her household finances even further by acquiring a few goats. With steady  income coming in, Suva is now undoing all the damage done due to the family's troubled past. "My children have joined back the school, they wear good clothes, eat nourished food and this wouldn't have been possible without the Sillai training school," signs off a content Suva.