Forgotten sarees add dash of colour to rural women

Sumita, who is the brainchild behind Kai Thari-Karigar, a Facebook group to promote awareness of handloom fabric and sarees, saw the potential behind the 8,000 strong members, who shared a love for the hand spun yarn. 

“When I started the group two years ago, the idea was to create a knowledge resource platform about weaves and weavers, get people to understand what goes behind the crafts they are wearing. At that time, the #100sareepact was also going viral. Women were taking out their mother’s sarees and wearing them. The group also focusses on identifying authentic handloom and how to differentiate it from a fake. 

Kai Thari garnered a huge following. Most of us have a saree or two, which we don’t use. If each of them sent a washed and ironed cotton saree, we could give it to women in rural areas, who own less than five sarees totally,” she explained. 

A volunteer for various causes, Sumita started volunteering with Goonj, a non-profit organisation that distributes family kits in rural areas. Ayushi Mittal, who’s a part of the Goonj team in the city, said the concept is not just to give material as charity but involve the families in developmental activities. 

“If a pond is not operational, we talk to the village communities and motivate them to clean it. As a reward, a family kit is given to each person, which has clothes, shoes and other miscellaneous items for the entire household,” she explained. Goonj works with a hundred villages in and around Chennai. The saree means a lot to women in rural India, Ayushi added. 

“For example, during disasters, women who traditionally wear saree, find it tough to wear a salwar suit. Moreover, the saree is an important part of the kit, because when a woman gets money, her priority is the husband and children,” she said. When Sumita sent out a call to collect a hundred sarees in March 15, little did she expect such a massive response. 

“I had women sending not only used sarees but also new ones. We managed to collect 200 sarees and now, the collection drive is still going on,” she concluded.