Bavani’s Story

Every night, Bavani would boil a pot of water and hope that her husband would come home from work with just enough rice and lentils to keep her family from going hungry. Her husband was a day laborer and frequently came home empty-handed. On these nights, her family would drink the boiled water for their evening meal. But that was before she took classes at a Partners India sewing center.

These days, Bavani doesn’t worry about going hungry anymore. She reflects, “I was given an opportunity to learn a skillset, with which I am now able to earn and contribute to my growing family.” In a village where the average daily income is less than a dollar, Bavani makes three dollars a day in her new job as a seamstress. And that’s not all—in her free time, she is teaching some of her neighbors to sew using the machine she was given during her training with Partners India. She says, “I have no big dreams, but my goal is to use my new skills to help other women in my village. I have been given much, and now I want to give back.”

In rural India, there are many women like Bavani who have never been to school and are completely dependent upon the unsteady income of their husbands. Most of these women also do not have access to clean water or bathroom facilities. Without these things, they are vulnerable to the spread of rampant disease and sexual violence.