For: Himalayan Geography module
This paper is dedicated to all the inspiring and devoted working women I met over the week that I spent in Kalika village. From heads of household to founders of social enterprises, women participate in various spheres of society, uplifting their and their families’ lives.
Women of UMANG
(Left): UMANG shop sign; (Right): A product by rural Mongolian herdswomen and marketed by the Snow Leopard Trust in exchange for the community’s promise to protect and not hunt snow leopards
UMANG, short-hand for the Mahila Umang Producers Company, is an amazing initiative that has connected more than 3000 Kumaoni women. The UMANG member seeks to improve the quality of her and her family’s lives through the sales of hand-knitted woollens, fruit preserves and pickles, natural honey, beeswax candles and natural spices. To serve the localised needs of each village, women form Self-Help Groups (SHGs) of a maximum of 20 women, which increases their credibility in the eyes of banks. SHGs are able to open bank accounts, to which members contribute Rs.10 – Rs.100 every month. The accumulated amount can be channelled as micro-credit towards healthcare, agriculture and livestock improvement, housing and sanitation, education and small enterprises that the group is collectively interested in. As such, SHGs often are the foundation stone for many community development programmes. Akshay considers this system of micro-credit the main draw for establishing SHGS, as it offers members financial independence, with its more humane interest rate of 2% instead of the rapacious corporate loan rate of 12%. The UMANG website reports that within the last decade, SHGs have accumulated Rs.8.00 million, of which almost 70% serves as small peer-to-peer loans.
We found out that our host mum Neha-ji is a member of UMANG and specialises in producing mango chutney. The double income of the family (her husband is a chef) positions them as relatively well-to-do in the village. This is evident because Neha-ji owns four cows and two calves. She invests in her three daughters’ education, sending them to rather expensive private schools: Babita and Mahima attend Chaitanya Montessori School, a private school that costs 700 rupees a month, while Manisha attends Beershiva Senior Secondary School and goes for tuition, adding another 620 rupees to the household expenditure.
The double income also spurs the money economy, giving the household purchasing power at bazaars – for good and for bad. The family could afford eggs, thus increasing the nutritional richness of their vegetarian diet. More ‘luxury’ items such as Kumaoni plum jelly were also available to accompany our breakfast of potato parantha. However, Neha-ji would also often give the elder girls money to buy snacks and sweets – basically, junk food – from a general shop 3 minutes away from home. They let me try some corn puffs which are made to taste salty or salty and spicy. I remember in Sainji, children were also going into the local village store and getting big packets of corn puffs, before heading to school. Out of curiosity I had gotten one myself but could barely finish it because it had been so salty.
(Left): Neha-ji and her four children – Path, Mahina, Babita and Manisha;
(Right): Trash pile of snack and sweet wrappers on a slope under Neha-ji’s house
I am worried for them. While the children in Sainji and Kalika are not overweight – in contrast to 30% of children living in India’s urban centres – they may be susceptible to the less obvious and longer-term threat of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension and glucose intolerance. Experts explain that excessive consumption of food high in salt, sugar and fat is the main culprit for obesity and NCDs among children. Another disconcerting observation I made was how the children would go on using leaky pens and small pencil stubs, preferring to spend 5 rupees on sweets rather than good writing equipment. Researching online, I found an interesting solution to this problem. A survey of adolescent junk-food intake in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh demonstrate that junk food intake was lower among children of working mothers than those of homemakers. In fact, the more educated the mother, the healthier her children’s diets. On the other hand, junk food intake increased with the father’s education and socio-economic status. This research is important as it debunks the ‘Lazy Mother’ argument as the cause for the rise in junk-food intake. On the contrary, it advocates that female education could eliminate this drain on family finances spent needlessly on junk food and increase the healthfulness of children’s diets in India.
Women of HillCraft India
HillCraft is a non-profit organisation founded by Akshay’s sister that employs deserving mothers to make handicrafts for the Scandinavian market. The profile of women are thus similar in that they are young mothers. Akshay's sister opined that employing mothers sets off a positive multiplier effect in society, because their incomes go on to uplift not just herself but also the next generation. Within their office, some women fix Christmas-themed cards, some make newspaper bags, while others fashion bangles out of chir pine needles.
Above: Quality-checking the Christmas-themed cards
One interesting product that HillCraft is launching soon are makeup pouches fashioned from the traditional Kumaoni cloth called the picchora. The pichhora is worn by married Kumaoni women on auspicious occasions. It’s an article of clothing imbued with cultural significance: vermillion is the colour of purity, saffron that of piousness and a reminder of one’s moral equality with everything in the world. Traditionally, the cloth is first dyed in turmeric for the saffron shade, before red dots are printed on, with the help of a coin covered in cloth. A homemade product, a picchora would be passed on from mother to daughter, for generations and generations. In recent years, however, picchoras are increasingly machine-made outside of the Kumaon, with wooden blocks, different materials, synthetic dyes and even different colours. Nevertheless, HillCraft recognised the effectiveness of the picchora in raising awareness of Kumaoni culture and heritage. Thus, HillCraft strategically jumped on the bandwagon with the design of the new product, believing that it would be a good exercise of the women’s skills to produce picchora the traditional way. In the process, it would also foster pride over her Kumaoni culture, against the present trend of mass-market commodification.
Above: Products that HillCraft will soon be launching, of which the leftmost is a pouch made with the traditional Kumaoni patterned cloth
Final Thoughts
Akshay shared a story of how one of HillCraft’s employees lacked nimbleness required for making the greeting cards. Her probation period, during which newcomers apprentice under senior artisans, had already been extended from 1 month to 3 months. The founders thought it was bad for her self-esteem to continue extending probation, till they discovered through further conversation that she was sufficiently skilful and even creative with some beads and string. And that was how the jewellery-making arm of HillCraft started!In a society more concerned with taking or matching contributions for contributions, UMANG and HillCraft demonstrate how involving others in dignified employment opportunities and support systems are in fact the ingredients of greater success. These inspiring stories of Kumaoni women who climbed the social ladder of success, looked back and gave others a hands-up will be etched in my mind, as I seek my own meaning and avenue of ‘success’.
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