In riverine villages, a sewing machine can make a difference

It is an inherent talent the women of the forest community enjoy at their sprawling courtyards with greenery all around. Children play with each other and learn different skills on their own while wandering after animals in grazing fields. Girls as usual utilise free time purposefully by sitting with elder women, who break the silence with the rhythmic wedding songs while busy in needle work.
They give a beautiful touch to stitch their dreams while using colourful threads. All the elder household women have the same answer, linking their life with habits of birds that leave nests earlier and return after sunset.
“It depends on the season of crops. We leave homes for grass cutting, wheat harvesting, picking cotton and collecting fuel wood and cow dung from the forest tracks. We help men in different works. Some women walk the whole day after herds. After cooking food, taking care of children and animals, we spare some time to sit together,” said Hajran Charo, who resides in the riverine village Khabar Charo, union council Manjhand, Jamshoro district. Sitting under a wooden shelter or thick trees, all women can be seen busy in their work.
The village is located hardly a kilometre away from the main stream of the mighty river Indus.
Hajran, now a widow and the mother of a 13-year-old boy Shahdad, said her husband Ameer Bakhsh, a wood cutter, died when he fell off his camel while carrying wood from the jungle and going to a nearby town some six years back.
Now she lives with her in-laws, taking care of her only son, who is studying in class IV at the village mosque school. She had a sewing machine, which the devastating floods in 2010 washed away along with other belongings.
Since then, she was in trouble, sitting idle at home. However, Hajran Charo accredited to the Sindh Community Foundation (SCF), which donated a sewing machine to her as well as 10 other vulnerable women in the same locality.
“When the floods came, we lost all assets except animals,” she remembered.
The villagers started their life with building wooden and mud shelters for families and animals. But women, who have lost their artisan tools, were facing hardships while living idle at homes and wanted to utilise the free time.
Despite the fact that the forest community is vulnerable to floods, they have a valid reason to stay there, as many of them have big herds which they cannot shift with their families out of the woodlands.
Female artisans produce beautiful items, using raw material available near their abodes in seasons. They are familiar with an internal market system.
Hajran keeps herself busy to live with dignity earning between Rs 100 and 300 daily, depending on the work she receives from neighbouring women. She prepares dresses for women and children. She is optimistic about seeing her son becoming educated, stitching dreams whole the day.
She was the youngest among her five siblings – two brothers and three sisters. Recalling the past, she said during her childhood, she witnessed floods during the monsoon season and saw how their families used to shift to mounds near by, staying for a few days there. But the recent river flood forced entire families to travel seven kilometres to live in the hilly areas.
She feels happy guiding relative girls and imparting her skills to them. However, she said the suitable time for more production is the summer season, the “big days”. “Winter is not favourable in terms of producing more,” she opined.
“I have to learn more designs to find better market in nearby towns. For this, I have to work hard to buy raw material myself to expand the work,” she added.
Javed Hussain, head of the SCF, said his organization, in collaboration with the UNDP, has supported 1,000 women in 31 villages of Jamshoro district, donating sewing machines and seed material to skilled women with the aim to provide access to livelihood to artisan women. 
“We want to shift their skill as per the industrial development by linking them to the market to lessen their pressure of poverty and save their talent. We have convinced these women to continue their traditional work, as there is big market for these artful products,” he added.