Pics of Sewing and Embroidery class in Vijayawada.

The instructor here is Mrs. Srivani, aged 60. She is the senior most among all our instructors. Her husband is a retired train station master. She has 4 daughters and all are married and settled with their husbands at different places. Srivani is staying with her husband. She worked as a teacher in a primary school before joining Shoshana. She is a tailor and has been training needy women even before started working with Shoshana. In 2001 she started working with Shoshana and for the past 10 years she trained around 157 needy women for their self help.  Her husband is also very co-operative with her in maintaining the project.

Recently she bought a small house and shifted the sewing project  to the new place. She has 10 students right now.

Five each in morning and afternoon batches. I am posting the working pics of the present batch.

Pics of the nurse from Karamchedu medical Centre with her new born son who is 2month old. She had a C-section again.

She had facial paralysis while she was pregnant so she had to take medication for that which was not very good for her baby. She had not much hopes on the baby's health but by God's grace both mother and child are in good condition and she started going to work again.

Students’ name: Mariyamma and Uma

Both women are married around 30yrs of age. Illiterates and each one has 3 children, living in small rented houses. Mariyamma has 3 daughters

and Uma has 2 boys and one girl. 

Both their husbands are daily workers earning 150 to 200 rupees per day.

 

Both the ladies joined the stitching class one year back and now presently at the end of the course. Already started working besides learning.  Both the ladies are working as a group sharing the work they get from the neighbours and they are very happy supporting  each other for their self help and also their families.

Coming from a very poor financial background it is necessary for both wife and husband to work for their living. These ladies really are utilizing the knowledge they got from the sewing class for the betterment of their lives.

Student’s Name: Sunitha

She is a Christian, married, aged 30yrs. She is  living in a single rented room with her family. She has one daughter studying 6^th class and one son in 4^th class. She is a very poor, illiterate women. Husband is also an illiterate daily worker in a welding shop. He earns about 200 hundred per day but doesn’t give a single paise for the household. He is an alchoholic and uses up all the money for his drinking. She is a victim of domestic violence. Family is in a very bad financial situation. 

Sunitha is working as a servant maid and cook in her neighbouring houses. With the little money she gets she is running the house, looking after her children and paying 600rupees rent for the room she is living. She is in such a bad situation that her husband even sold the door of her single roomed house for his drinking. It is more like an open house, with some of her belongings getting lost sometimes since the entire area is full of poor people.

One year back she joined in our sewing centre, Vijayawada in the free stitching class. She used the little leisure time she has for learning stitching and embroidery.She utilized most of the time in practicing and came out to be a very good student. She is at the end of the course and already started working on her own. 

Hemima , instructor at our Vijayawada sewing centre encouraged her, helps her for more practice and sometimes giving her work if she has any stitching orders from outside. This way also she is quite happy in earning more money than regular income she gets while still learning. She is quite confident now that she could be independent and look after her children quite well and if the situation demands that she had to leave her husband if she has more problems from him and goes on with her life in a much better way  than before.

Student Name: Swapna

She is  a Christian girl, single, aged 17 yrs. Both her parents died of HIV 5yrs back. She is a drop out. She had to stop her studies since her parents were bed ridden she had to take care of them. She has two elder brothers who are also drop outs.

All her relatives tried to avoid them and treated them as untouchables. Both her brothers were working as child labourers to help the family. She was working as a servant maid and sometimes she was begging on the roads for food.  They have no house of their own and were literally on the roads. Good thing is that, all three of them are staying together.

 

Two years back Hemima saw her and she tried to teach her stitching. It was very difficult in the beginning since she was very slow in learning  and very irregular since she had to work for her living besides learning. Hemima took special care of her besides teaching like now and then helping her with food and clothes,giving her enough time to learn ,she turned good in stitching and now she started her own shop.

She is earning a good income now, rented a small house and could arrange a few basic things for her house. She is using the front verandah as a kitchen and also for her shop and one more small room for sleeping.Her brothers also are staying with her and they are working as daily workers. They are quite happy now. She is very happy now that she could help herself and have a decent living instead of begging on the roads.

Success stories of some of our women at Shoshana sewing centre, Vijayawada.

Student Name: Rajani

She is a Christian, aged 33 yrs. Illiterate housewife. Husband was an electrician. They have a small  two roomed house of their own. Rajani has three daughters all below 13 yrs of age. She was married at a very young age and has been taking care of the children since then. Even though they are very poor she was not allowed to go out for work. Her husband didn’t like her working outside. Her husband was the only earning source for them. Only last year she was allowed to learn stitching at Hemima’s place since she is residing close to her. She turned out to be a very good student.

Sadly 4 months back her husband died of an accident. He was working at their neighbours house and got electric shock and he got major burns. He was in the hospital for a few days and died. Rajani was in  a total depression. She has no education and on top she was at home all these years and now She has to take care of the house. Both her parents and in-laws are very poor to support her. Now her husband being the only son of his parents, they also depend on her. She was in a total confusion and she tried to commit suicide but somehow saved. 

Hemima was constantly checking on her. She almost finished her stitching class and with the encouragement of Hemima she started her own work from home as a tailor. Now she is earning minimum 100 rupees per day. She is very happy now that she could take care of her children as well as her in-laws. Her mother in law is helping her in the household while she is working and her father-in-law is also helping her a little bit working as  a daily worker. Her children are going to a Government school but she is very happy that she could take care of them herself instead of sending them to a hostel. She is very grateful that she had the opportunity of utilizing the sewing class with which she could help herself as well as her family.

Visit to Epurupalem medical Project

Few pics from Shoshana Medical Centre, Epurupalem after shifting from Weaver's colony.

The present place is backward area with majority Christians and Muslims. After them weavers are the majority class.   Mainly coolies and agricultural labourers.

Buela Rani(Nurse) from Weavers colony also belongs to this christian area and she is living close to the medical centre. That would be great help for the people here so they could approach here even if there is any emergency. She could even take in patients if there is any need for infusions.