On my 21st birthday, I boarded my first ever transatlantic flight and flew for 20+ hours from Chicago to Abu Dhabi, and then Abu Dhabi to Cochin International Airport. I was met at the airport by three people I had never met, but over the next six weeks they, and the other members of my team, became some of my closest friends. Together we spent the summer traveling around the state of Kerala in India, staying in Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, and more, working with and meeting the most amazing women in every location. 

The goal of CraftHER, the leadership-in-action project created and led by @Asha Scaria Vettoor , Preetha Matthews, and Swara: Voice of Women was broad: women’s empowerment through the realm of traditional Indian handicrafts. We met with five different groups of women: weavers working with Save the Loom, enterprising women creating and selling a variety of products with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of Kerala, unionized women working to fill traditionally male-dominated roles at Archana, Indigenous makers working with Forest Post to sell goods, and of course the talented seamstresses of Swara. At each stop we spent a few days meeting with and learning from the women, hearing their life stories and watching them at work. At times we were even lucky enough to be invited into their homes for meals.

 After spending time with the women, my teammates and I did mini consulting projects for the organizations, working on issues like marketing and social media to help share their wonderful work with the broader community and continue the traditions of handicrafts, which tend to be passed down through generations but are starting to die out as young people leave the area in search of better education and employment. Organizations like Save the Loom are working to save traditional knowledge and find new ways to engage the younger generations so these intricate practices and institutional skills are not lost. Our goal was to help them take steps in this direction and we tailored our work to the needs of the specific organization, trying to set frameworks that could continue to be useful and productive after we left. I hope we were successful in this goal, and that we were able to give at least a small piece back to the people who gave us so much. The work and stories of these women deserve to be known by the world.

While theoretically there as leaders, my teammates and I agreed throughout the trip that we learned so much more from the women we met than they ever could from us. Everyone was always so kind and welcoming, even when we had to communicate through a translator. Shared laughter and smiles did so much to bridge the gap and bring us closer together. Women like Omana chechi (chechi means “sister” in Malayalam and was how everyone we met referred to each other, as a term of endearment and friendship), the head tailor at Swara, Nalini Nayak, founder of SEWA Kerala, and Manju Vesudevan, founder of Forest Post shared stories with us and gave us advice about how to get involved in local communities to make change starting on an individual level. Meeting them, and all of the other women at the wonderful organizations along the way impacted my life in ways that are hard to put into words. I am forever changed for the better because of this trip and all of the people I met during it. CraftHER taught me to think outside my comfort zone—especially when it comes to creative endeavors, to push myself and persevere through obstacles, that cross-cultural communication is easier than expected and ever so enriching, and so much more. Coming back to Brown and the Laidlaw program, I am trying to implement the lessons I’ve learned about empowerment, leadership, and community both to my studies and just in my daily life. Overall, I am so grateful for Laidlaw, for Swara, for my beautiful team, and for this project for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime to travel and work in India. I will carry this experience, the women I met, and the things I learned during my LiA with me for the rest of my life.

To see more details and pictures from the trip, check out @craftherbyswara on Instagram!