Birth of Athi Initiative

In our initial set of interactions with the people of Ramnagar, we came to know that lack of access to livelihood opportunities is a major problem. Further discussions led to the understanding that the women of Ramnagar know how to sew but they have not been able to make use of that to create an Independent livelihood out of it for themselves. These women gave us the push to work for creating a sewing enterprise that will become a self-sufficient form of livelihood for them.

Thus, we started conceptualizing the Athi Initiative along with the women. A consensus was reached that we will start by sewing tote bags, because of the easy stitching process and the demand of the product. The floor work of the initiative started with some training sessions to learn the manufacturing process for the tote bags. Following that some of the women who knew to stitch started teaching others also to increase the workforce. Similarly women learned all the different aspects of the work, like cloth cutting, measuring, stitching, and finally printing designs on the bags, by working together with some help from our side.