Hands to Empower- Hand Embroidery

The Project has been piloted in the North Karnataka region which has historically faced distress migration, extreme alternating weather events like droughts and floods. The project is working with a group of women who have not traditionally engaged in embroidery but need to diversify their source of income and have a decentralized and local livelihood option. The effort is to initiate a program in collaboration with a weaver that Vimor Handloom Foundation has worked with in the past from Betageri which is a historically well-known town for its handlooms, located in Gadag district of Karnataka.

• To provide dignified and economically viable livelihoods for disadvantaged women through skill and design intervention and training in creating a new design language and unique embroidered products.
• To initiate a process of rejuvenation and revival of the handloom industry that has been affected by neglect and loss of skills and respect in the region.
• To engage women who have lost their economic assets and whose livelihoods have been affected by floods in the region in mid-2019.
• To build capacity and support the establishment of a social enterprise which will have a phase of incubation followed by a handover phase until the group can manage the enterprise on their own. 

• Social Impact: The project is designed and implemented with women from the weavers' cluster.
• To increase individual income: The project with its marketing potential will in the initial phase ensure an increase in income for each individual. (projected individual income approximately Rs. 6000 to 8000)
• Financial literacy and inclusion: The embroidery project is also an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the community on financial literacy and inclusion. 
• Empowerment of women: It has been clearly demonstrated that an increase in incomes coupled with a dialogue around financial inclusion, women’s rights, and autonomy also results in the process of a journey towards greater independence and decision making which also benefits health, education, and development outcomes for the entire family
• To create a larger ecosystem of livelihoods through linkages between embroidery and Revival of handloom weaving

The project will also help to rebuild the lost dignity and self-respect of the artisan community in the region who have completely moved away from their highly skilled weaving practice to other unskilled jobs. The initiation of the project has already raised a lot of interest and there is a potential of a linkage between the handloom weavers who will produce the cloth on which the embroidery will be done.