One of my ambitions on this trip to Kathmandu this year has been to find a deserving woman (or women) who's life would be enriched through the gift of a sewing machine. It was an idea spawned through reading the excellent book: "Half the Sky"-about the condition of women in the 3rd world. A simple sewing machine can mean a way to make a living, to be independent of other jobs that require an "owner" and even make the difference between having to sell one's body as a last hope for food or having the ability to earn a living. I wasn't sure how it would work, but several friends had enough faith in me (including my good brother, who never seems to doubt my crazy schemes!) to donate money towards a machine. In the end, I came to Nepal with enough money for several treadle machines.
The hard part wasn't finding a woman who needed a machine, the streets here are filled with poor women, babies tied on their backs, begging or selling a pitiful assortment of matches, gum or a handful of chilies on the street. It was how to choose from the hundreds I see who would benefit the most-and then the reality of how they would store the machine or where to put it if they were on the street-or how to train them to use it-or how to help them purchase thread and cloth. Suddenly my head began to spin with the enormity of what I was trying to do. My husband reminded me, in a late night phone call to cry on his shoulder, that this would be worthy of a Peace Corps project and then you get two years to put the plan in action, not a few weeks.
So I started with Danny's and Bree's help-finding cooperatives already operating here, and interviewing the women actually doing this type of work as to how they got stated. Bree was essential in that and had many good questions to ask of the women we met. And that's how we met Laxm.
For those of you who are familiar with Hindu gods and goddesses, Laxmi is the very pretty one sitting on a pile of gold surrounded on each side by white elephants who spout gold coins into her lap. She is who you pray to when you want success in life or your business. But being named after this prosperous goddess isn't enough. For the real Laxmi, who now operates her own tailoring stall in a side neighborhood of Kathmandu called Jorpati, her path was long and troubled. She is Nepali, what caste I am not sure, but her husband threw her and their young son out on the streets when he fell in love with a younger, more beautiful woman. On the streets literally, with no means to make a living, and no family in the area, (this is often how women here end up on the streets) she was forced to beg to earn enough money for food. She and her young son lived in conditions worse than the worse poverty you can imagine, breathing the fumes of diesel buses, plying the passerbys for coins and growing weaker through starvation and malnutrition. Then she found Durga Manali and her micro-finance group. Durga is the industrious woman who runs the orphanage we have worked with for the past four years-she not only provides a home for the 50 some children at Buddhist Child Home, but has started a micro-finance non-profit that gives very low, small business loans to women in need. Laxmi was such a woman. After an interview and application process, Laxmi was given enough money to set up a small tailoring, or sewing stall in the neighborhood. She now has three sewing machines in her tiny, cramped stall of about 8 x 8 feet, which consists of three walls and is open in front to all who pass by. The bare cement walls are covered with her creations in a multitude of colors and fabrics-she now has at least one other young lady who is working for her sewing that we saw the day we visited. She was so happy to have us come see her small shop that she sent a boy out for warm soda for us (yes, the hot, green bottle of Sprite that I dread but drink with respect and honor!). She told us through our translator that her life before the microloan and sewing business had been one of despair and horror, The sewing machines had given her new life and hope. Her smile lit up the dusty air around us and she happily showed us some small mala bags she stitches up with remenents-small round purses with double drawstrings and lined with colorful fabrics-I bought up all she had and ordered 20 more. Her dream is to purchase a "good quality" machine, one that won't break down and will last a long time-the price-about $20,000 rubees (about $300 USD). She is waiting until she can afford to take out another microloan for that.
As we walked back to Durga's we talked of how best to support women like Laxmi-who have been given that opportunity to pull themselves literally out of the gutter because of a microloan-not a gift. We can easily buy the machine for Laxmi with the donations I've been given, but would that upset the system here? We are still talking about the best way to help women like this-input please!
Meanwhile, we have found several amazing women's cooperatives and one run by Tibetans who have been trained to sew to earn a living. I just left their place, where a group of about 6 women run sewing machines and also sit on the rug and do hand-stitching of the most amazing quality. I had them work up a laptop bag for me and just picked up the sample-it's beautiful! I am so impressed I am ordering 25 of them, it will help them out tremendously and if they sell in the USA it will help out HANDS. i will try to post a photo of the bags soon-they are so pretty I have no doubt friends will buy them-and so although I haven't yet solved the problem of who to give machines to, I have found many women who will benefit from purchasing items from them, so they can have a better life and a sustainable living-and not have to beg in the streets of Kathmandu or worse.
Maybe Laxmi is watching over them-and us-afterall!
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