European Parliament Delegation Interacts with Handloom Weavers

Photo Credit: Manoj Meka/Oxfam India

A seventeen member delegation of European Parliament visited S.Lingottam village of Nalgonda district in Andhra Pradesh and interacted with handloom weavers on April 29, 2010. These handloom weavers are covered under the project ‘Improved Livelihood for Cotton Farmers, Weavers and Garment Makers in South India’.

The project is funded by European Commission and implemented by Oxfam India with Chetana Society in the state of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The project target beneficiaries are 8000 small and marginal cotton farmers and their families and 1000 poor handloom weaver families and 10,000 garment workers across the state of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The delegation of six countries headed by the Chairman of the European Parliament Graham Watson inquired about the collective economic self-reliance pursuits of handloom weavers. They visited the weavers’ component of the programme and interacted with the project beneficiaries. The entire process of handloom production & weaving was demonstrated to the delegation, followed by an interactive session facilitated by the partner - Chetana society.The event was widely covered by national and vernacular media as well (click here for media coverage).

The parliamentarians were quite enthused to the village visit and enjoyed the day while meeting the weavers especially women, interacting with the community and having a different experience of living upto 44 degree temperature. Oxfam also put up the exhibition of handloom products made by weavers and the visitors picked up the products as an appreciation and as the remembrance of the visit.

The Chairman of the European Parliament, Graham Watson while reflecting his thoughts on the visit appreciated the work of Oxfam India with cotton farmers and weavers. He said, “In the times of climate change, handloom is a very environment friendly fabric and in this context, handloom sector needs to be developed further”.

This project links to the Oxfam’s global campaigning work on economic justice campaign through its work on cotton farmers, labour rights issues of garment workers in the global cotton chain and weavers in the unorganized sector lacking essential services and social security. This programme has been identified by India agriculture scale up programme initiated in 2006 as one of the significant models for scaling up the impact on poverty and suffering. The Project works with poor producers across the cotton textile supply chain to change beliefs, practices and policy affecting the various communities and provides alternatives to farmers/weavers to access and control a larger section of the supply chain.

Under this project, cotton farmers are trained on marketing dynamics, research on market conditions affecting farmers/weavers including price monitoring, quality and supply & demand. The project facilitates creation of a micro credit scheme for farmers and weavers to invest in new technologies as a part of their skill development.

Story Credit: Ms. Manisha Sharma