Drought Prone Lands, Patan, Gujarat

In this arid, drought-prone land there is very little water for daily use. Agriculture is rain-fed, but the rains do not come every year. Milch animals are the only assets, but ensuring their survival is difficult. Local vegetation is thorny; there is a chronic shortage of green and dry fodder; and if the only crop they grow is a cash crop, it does not yield any fodder. In the dry summer months there isn’t enough food or water for people or animals, so they migrate in search of work.

Members of the Self-Employed Women’s Assoication (SEWA), formed in Ahmedabad in 1972, came to Patan and Banaskantha in response to a major drought. The women were desperate for work, but the government saw them as unskilled labour.

Far from being unskilled, SEWA found the women to be highly skilled in traditional crafts. They constantly sewed, embroidered, and created works of textile art as dowries for their daughters. During tough times, they were forced to sell their precious embroideries to traders for a pittance, just to survive. If the women could come together, they could generate employment for themselves. By forming a producers’ collective, they could pool their resources, use their traditional skills to make products, and SEWA would help the collectives find markets for their products.