Kankuben Lalabhai Parmar

Kakuben Lalabhai Parmar of Madhutra, Santalpur, Patan a patchwork artisan and with SEWA since last 20 years talks of her past and present saying, "We had no value for our work and never thought of getting income by selling them. It was only a piece of bread or flour that we got against several days work that I did. Even the community that I belong to is termed as scheduled caste and were treated as untouchables thus though having this traditional skill of patch work entering market with our work could never be dreamt of but with the help of SEWA and our company STFC it has become possible. I had never thought of my piece of patch work that I used to cover the torn mattresses in my house could be used as a curtain and beautify someone's drawing. After joining SEWA we came to know how much our craft could be helpful to us in our lives and how it could help us survive and stop us migrating from place to place in search of livelihood and fodder for our cattle. We used to migrate for 4 to 8 months and return only if it rained or else move further and search for casual labour work which was the only source for living, We used to embroider but as per the customs only traditional products were made for our personal use. But now we do our work as per the market trends and needs and orders that our company receives. We had never moved out even in groups of women let aside alone but today I can come and go alone form my village to places like Ahmedabad Delhi Mumbai and many other cities in India. In the beginning SEWA came to us with work gave and collected and paid us in the village and we never took that as our own we thought it is SEWA's work so never took care in giving good and neat and clean quality work but after sitting for nearly 6 months without work and we asked our SEWA sisters the reason why no more work was brought to us we were told that it is because the godowns are full of all filthy work that was done by us. It was then that we understood the value of quality work and then onwards took the task as our responsibility and took the ownership of what we did. We started grading our own work and quality checking at each level to avoid filthy production and collection of not saleable stock. So now we toil hard not only for our own self but also for our sister artisans and our company. We want our next generation - daughters and daughters in law to take our traditional skill and craft to the outer world and the main stream market through many more exhibitions at international level many more outlets like we have in Ahmedabad Delhi Mumbai. Now all of us artisans can be at home no need to migrate and also earn a livelihood - no more migrations and leaving the old and family behind to struggle on their own.

Craft: Appliqué