Pilot activity under SEED Project; “Tailoring & Craft center”

On 27th November 2013, “Tailoring cum Craft center” was inaugurated at Balwadi No. 15 in Powai .The event was a part of an initiative under The Seed project of Mumbai Smiles. SEED project aims to empower women by imparting skills through short term modular courses. To make the project sustainable, women who develop requisite business acumen after being trained will be appointed to run the “Training Cum Craft Centre”. This model shall then be replicated for other Self Employable courses in future.

At the initial stage, out of the 60 women who have been trained in tailoring, 15 will be selected. The selection will be done by the trainer, the SEED team and a member from Mumbai Smiles management team. Out of these 15, finally 4 shall be selected for running the “tailoring and craft centre”. As a part of 2014 strategy, women engaged in “Tailoring and Craft center” will be given an in-house assignment of stitching uniforms for the Balwadi kids . Later in the year the team will also try and fetch orders from various schools.

Alexandra Haglund Petitbó, General Director at Mumbai Smiles inaugurated the event. She delivered a speech on women empowerment .Even local leaders from the community present at the event spoke about women empowerment giving examples of leaders like Indira Gandhi. Women from the centre who have been trained in tailoring displayed some bags that they stitched. Alexandra liked the bags and took them with her with a promise to display those bags in Spain. Balwadi students and teachers were also present at the event.

These women can be a role model and a great source of inspiration to many other women who wish to be self-employed and independent.They can be called upon to share their own experience of entrepreneurship. The same business model can then be replicated in other areas also.