The womenfolk of Umden, besides working in the field alongside their husbands, fathers and brothers, have to take care of all the household chores and activities at their homes. And in the midst of all this, they manage to take out time to make colourful weaves and sell them in the market to make an extra buck. These village people produce a range of products from eri including shawls, mufflers and decorative bags. As in everything else, they are close to Mother Nature in this activity as well and they borrow the colours of nature to dye their clothes.
Now, with the intervention of the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE) under the sponsorship of the Union ministry of MSME, the womenfolk seemed to have found new hope as they are honing their skills of making the natural colours in a more refined way and to derive more hues. Earlier, they could produce only five colours from the leaves of various trees but now they can make as many as 27 colours using various ingredients from nature.
Dianglin Tadu, a girl in her 20s, is excited after undergoing training conducted by IIE to produce dyes. "It is very exciting. We could not imagine that such wonderful colours could be produced by using natural ingredients. I think it would be a milestone for us if we manage to produce the stuff on our own. Though as of now we are not commercially so advanced, we might soon be thanks to the IIE initiative," she added. This transformation could bring smiles to many faces as the new colours and technically-enhanced products could invite more customers. "These days competition in the market is very stiff and to survive, one need to enhance the quality of their products. I think the women here will be benefited from this training," said IIE project coordinator Hemanta Rabha.
The IIE, under the Regional Resource Centre for Cluster Development, has taken several initiatives for the development of the rural areas. And under this scheme, the IIE took the Umden Eri cluster to provide training to the women of 17 villages in the area to enhance their skill of dying clothes in natural way.
There are 189 household units involved in the dress-making, and the major activities are rearing, spinning, dying and weaving. Besides the dying training, the IIE has also urged the artisans to take up modern yet traditional ways to increase their production.
"Earlier, they used the floor loom in which the work was slow. With machine looms in place, they can work faster and produce more items," Rabha said.
"Though we do not have permanent stalls to showcase our products, we have attended a number of exhibitions and received a warm response from the visitors. If our weavers can take the opportunity and work as per new techniques, maybe we could see a new chapter in the way the world perceives our products," said W Laloo, secretary of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that looks after the marketing of the products.