Building Capacities of Rural Women Artisans : Case Studies of Women Empowerment from Thar Desert of Western Rajasthan

The terrain of the desert of Rajasthan in India is harsh, arid and tough with shifting sand dunes, sparse population, extreme temperatures, and stunted vegetation. The Thar thus makes the lives of women even complex. Amidst this though, the journey of URMUL's producer groups of women is quite remarkable and inspiring. Desert region has a high population of women engaged in hand-embroidery activities for income generation. They migrated with their families from Pakistan during the 1971 war. The middlemen from neighbouring districts exploited them by giving nominal wages. During 1991-92, URMUL Seemant, a non-governmental organisation, organised these artisan women in groups, trained them in quality improvement, contemporary designs, colours, latest fashion trends, through continuous capacity building training programmes. The initiative has proved as a platform for creating and enhancing sustainable livelihoods for rural women artisans to earn a better living with dignity in the drought-prone areas of western Rajasthan. Using five case studies of these women artisans, this paper presents the successful process of capacity building and inclusion of women in various aspects of empowerment through embroidery-based income generation project. The paper establishes the fact that if women get opportunities, exposure, support system and motivational trainings they can be the breadwinners, trendsetters, and change agents. This paper presents the success story of URMUL group of women artisans as an example of participatory, collective and organisational effort to accelerate women empowerment. They now speak against discrimination, inequalities and motivate themselves to have a greater participation in decision-making, access to information to develop life skills and confidence to inculcate leadership, self-respect and self-reliance.