Sameena - Spinner/Weaver since 2005

Sameena - Spinner/Weaver since 2005

“It is not enough to have only one person working. There was not enough money. My husband is a hawker [selling biscuits and small utilitarian items from his bicycle]. His earnings were not sufficient, so I took training on the Charkha (Spinning Wheel).”

Sameena started around 2005 About fifteen or twenty ladies were learning with her how to spin the semi- automatic, hand-powered, spinning wheels. The training took three months. She went to Bhopal on a trip to see how the cotton is ginned and cleaned, all the steps before it reaches her hands. Sameena liked the training.


“It was easier than agriculture. It was cooler working inside.” Sameena says, “I might have died by now, or soon, if I were still working in the fields.” Sameena then trained to weave. She says


Sameena reflects that she got married when she was seventeen. They have three children. Her son is twenty-two. He finished twelfth standard. He is a construction labourer now. Her older daughter is twenty-two. She is in eleventh standard. Her younger daughter failed school in the ninth standard. She has been doing housework at home, like stitching clothes for the family.


“The children got their school fees paid, most of the school fees, since I started. One daughter is still in school. If I didn’t work here, we would have had to take loans and advances for their education. It would be a problem, yes, but we would manage it.”


She is eager for her daughters to get married, and will use her savings toward the wedding costs. She adds thoughts about her own life.


“Since I have been working I am very satisfied. When I came to work, I was in a mud house. Now I am in a proper house. The earnings go up, but I spend more and more. My daughters buy too many clothes!”

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