Rajkumari belongs to the weaving community in Badohi near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. Back in 2006, the Mirzapur carpet weaving industry faced accusations of child labour and internationally, the demand for these products fell.

"As a result of this, most of our families who were employed in these factories had to face loss of livelihood", she says.

Traditionally all the women in Badohi were making grass baskets with the locally available sarpat grass in their spare time. These were typically utilitarian in nature and were used to store grains.

"Around this time, Sandhi Craft Foundation in association with Dastakari Haat Samiti organized a design development workshop with women in three villages of Badohi including mine. The training helped us create products for the markets. Sandhi also arranged for the raw material and wages to be paid to all of us. The design training helped us to innovate with different products using ecofriendly dyes", says Rajkumari.

Today, products made by the women are sold in markets in all major cities of the country including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. "We participate in crafts exhibitions round the year. The total membership of our group is 75 women. All of us are earning today and contributing substantially to our total family incomes. The average monthly income of all the women in my group is around Rs. 2500/-. Sandhi also helps us in getting continuous orders from customers in main cities. We are happy that with continuous orders, we have more work today than we can handle on daily basis. Our families are fully supportive of us in this. Our work has generated all round respect and appreciation", says Rajkumari.