When I was initially handed the task of leading a women’s livelihood project in rural India, I was a bit unsure of where to begin, but quickly found that building a project that helped empower women was not as complicated as I once thought.

Ecowrap’s Muskaan is a women’s livelihood project that helps empower rural women through opportunities in up-cycling. The project currently provides the resources and training needed for women to use plastic water bottles to “cane”weave and cold beverage cans to emboss and hand stitch tiles that are used as raw materials to create home goods products to sell.

Below I have identified seven key steps that I believe helped propel the project forward over the past nine months of my fellowship. These steps could be a good starting place for anyone who, like me, is initially a little intimidated by leading a women’s livelihood project in India.

1) Provide the Right Opportunity

Especially in communities where it is less common for women to work, it is essential to understand the challenges they might face and the factors that prevent them from securing livelihood opportunities for themselves. Often, in many Indian homes, women are expected to be able to fulfill their household responsibilities as well as uphold all their familial and societal duties on top of their commitment to their work.  Women who have partnered with our project are also wives, mothers, and students. Early in the project, it was important for us to identify work that was flexible enough to be picked up and put down as needed. We identified working opportunities that wouldn’t compete with their other responsibilities.

We also found that livelihood models where income was dependent on sales in cities far from where our creative partners worked and lived left them discouraged as they had limited connections to opportunities to promote their products. We decided early on that it was important to us for the payment model we used to be dependent on the work our creative partners completed rather than the sale of the final products.

Our creative partners get paid per square inch of  raw material they weave or per tile they emboss.  We take the “cane”work and embossed tiles and collaborate with our carpenters to create whatever we like. While this model has worked well for our creative partners, it has also worked well for us as we are able to create products that closely align with the needs, desires, and trends of our market. It has also allowed us to explore commission-based projects and customizations for local businesses while keeping the ladies’ work consistent. Most women are looking for longer-term sustainable options. They want consistency yet flexibility. So instead of creating a model that clashes with these values, we embraced them and came up with a solution that works for their needs and the project’s needs alike.

2) Train with Foresight

When training anyone learning a new skill, one of the best pieces of advice I can give is to let them make mistakes.  After giving clear instructions, it can be tempting to reach over and correct in the moment. But it is the very act of backtracking and pulling out five lines just woven, or washing and cutting new cans because they weren’t measured properly, that prevents future mistakes.  This also allows women to discover their own errors, see their own growth, and celebrate their progress which will further motivate them and build confidence.

As our creative partners become more skilled in their craft, they produce the raw material more quickly which allows them to earn more. New creative partners who are just learning are happy that they get paid the same rate as more experienced partners, even though they are working at a slower pace. This allows us to hire and train women at any skill level. There is little pressure on them from us and the women challenge and motivate themselves to improve, empowering themselves.

It takes about 3 days to train our creative partners in “cane”weaving and about two days to train them in embossing. However, we have learned that it is most important to help our creative partners and the carpenters we work alongside understand each step that goes in to creating a product. This helps everyone respect each other’s work and builds empathy as a team. It also helps everyone improve the quality of their respective step. If they make an error, they see how it directly impacts someone else on the team. This helps everyone hold each other accountable to meet a collective standard.

3) Build Confidence

I can’t even begin to express how incredible it feels to be able to hold in your hand the physical product you were a part of creating.  We believe it is important for our creative partners to experience that feeling and to see and hold what was made from their hard work. As we make new products, our creative partners are among the first to see them. The ladies give feedback and share ideas they have for future products.

More than seeing our products come together, I enjoy watching our creative partners build confidence in themselves. One of our creative partners began sharing that while she had previously really loved embroidery, she wasn’t able to do it anymore because her eyesight had weakened. As tactile as the embossing project is, she quickly found that she is able to stitch. The other women celebrate her talent, and she has become an active part of teaching the basics to our other creative partners. When we went to visit her, she was beaming with confidence showing us her work.

While we may only see our creative partners once a week, it is important that when we observe growth in them, to express it. It is important to help them recognize and celebrate their own progress. One of my favorite moments of celebrating growth happened when we brought our interns to the village to learn from our creative partners how to weave. A few months had passed since I had first taught the ladies. As we all sat weaving together, I had to ask the women multiple times about the next steps and to check my work. They were laughing “didi, have you have forgotten how to weave?”  We reflected on where they were at when they had first started and how the roles had reversed. It was an incredibly proud moment for me. Over the past nine months I had seen these incredibly bright women develop new skills, face challenges, teach others, advocate for themselves, grow in self-confidence, and proudly display their work on their own social media platforms.

4) Encourage Creativity    

I am continuously impressed by the creativity and ingenuity of our creative partners.  Every time that I visit them, they have come up with new ways to improve their work. With a clear understanding of the quality expected, they have figured out ways of working more efficiently. They have shaved hours off the time it takes them to cut tiles or weave bottles and make the best use of the resources provided to them. They also use their creativity to help us come up with ideas for what products we should create next.

I remember feeling a bit nervous during my second trip to the village to teach our partners “cane”weaving. They had accidentally missed one of the crucial steps in the six-step weaving process when moving to a large frame which was making their work incredibly cumbersome. I was thinking about how many of our future products were dependent on them developing this skill. As we sat together weaving, the girls asked, “What is the first product we are making?” I explained that we were starting with tea trays and could move to more complex things as they got more comfortable. Their eyes lit up, “Didi, we could make chairs!  Or even a table!?!” It was at this moment I realized how important it was to include them in that part of the creative process and encourage their creativity. Many of our creative partners have started Pinterest pages and share with us via Whatsapp what they think we should create next. I love dreaming with them about the future of the project.

5) Assign Responsibility

Seeing how much our creative partners grew in confidence teaching our interns in their respective art forms, we knew that these women would be best suited to train our future creative partners. These ladies have learned which size cans are best for cutting and what strategies are best for embossing. They know which bottles are best for weaving and are actively problem solving to overcome any challenges they face. They know the standard and hold themselves to it. Coming alongside these women and assigning them the responsibility of training future creative partners is the next step as our team grows. Having taken ownership of their work, they will play an active role in empowering more women like themselves.

6) Create a Safe Space for Self-Advocacy

As we began “cane”weaving, it took us a couple of weeks to determine our pay structure and how we wanted to set things up to sustain the future of the project. We discussed a rate with our creative partners for their weaving that aligned with their monthly income goals. When we met with them, they agreed that the price we set was fair for the cutting and weaving, and that it could even be an opportunity for them to earn more as they honed their skills. As we got ready to leave, one of the ladies spoke up, “Didi, it is also a lot of work to wash all of the bottles too.” She was right. We had overlooked the fact that it took nearly a full day to get all of the labels and adhesive removed from the plastic bottles, and then to properly wash and sanitize them. I admired her boldness to advocate for herself and the other women. I recognized in the moment how important it was to create a safe space that welcomed her self-advocacy. “You are absolutely right!  We didn’t account for that, did we?” Within the next visit, we were able to get back to our creative partners with a fair rate for washing we all agreed upon.

We desire our creative partners to advocate for themselves both within and outside of the project. One of the small ways we have helped them do so is by ensuring that they each have their own bank account. While they may choose to submit their work collectively and divide the wages evenly among themselves, their income must be paid to an account in their name directly. This is the case even when members of the same family are working together. We long for others to respect their work and the income they earn and want to advocate for them to have the ability to manage it.

7) Foster Opportunities for Growth and Skills Development

We are both challenged and excited by the ways our creative partners desire to stretch themselves. They have expressed interest in creating larger products. They want to explore new weaving patterns and create new embossed designs. As the project continues, we recognize how important it is to foster opportunities for growth and skills development, be it inviting women to design the patterns for next embossing tools or exploring new weaving on different shaped frames. We would love to provide opportunities for leadership and for developing business skills outside of their creative work. While I am excited for this growth in them, I have to continuously  reminded myself not to be afraid of the growth that will likely simultaneously happen within me.