Online story at SilverLineStories

 Reposted from @silverlinestories

...

Nearly 8 years ago, when a drought hit Rayalaseema, a Dalit village called Paalaguttapalle was

forced into extreme poverty for all of its residents were landless farmers. But, the women of Paalaguttapalle did not lose hope; they took the matter in their own hands and with the help of Aparna Krishnan, started a business that now has customers based not just in India but also in the US, UK and Canada. For our final story, @silverlinestories had the honour of interviewing Aparna Krishnan and finding out how the women of Paalaguttapalle managed their business during a pandemic.

The organisation is fully run by the 9 women of Paalaguttapalle, Anitha, Annapurna, Lakshmikantha, Rani, Buji, Ramila, Roopa, Nirmala and Mamatha. Krishnan helps them with their marketing and social media presence via their page @paalaguttapalle_bags on Instagram and Facebook. However, the pandemic wasn’t kind to these women either, they suffered from losses due to a shortage of orders. Having said that, the women thought on their feet and soon enough began making masks with beautiful prints. Procurement of raw materials and shipping along with increased expenses were some of the problems that they faced due to transportation being majorly shut, said Aparna. When asked if they had to adopt any new social media strategies, she said that they did not need to implement any new social media strategies as they had a strong social media presence since their business began.

According to her, the #silverlining for their organisation is the remarkable ability of the 9 women to deal with any challenge that comes their way.

As an ending note, Aparna gave a much-needed reality check. She said, “This story is far bigger than Paalaguttapalle. It is a remote village of landless, asset-less, SC women, who given a small connection to the mainstream market have built a tremendous organisation on their own strength. My message is only that rural women and rural India are capable of taking extremely responsible jobs, one does not need to go around saying rural India is poor. We only need to help them by working proactively and providing them with connections, the rest can be held up and delivered by them.”