Out beating Uncertainties
Jamrud Kausar is a 30- year- old weaver from Chanderi, Madhya Pradesh. Since her childhood, she is used to the rhythm of handloom. Her husband, Aminuddin Ansari is a well-known master weaver in Chanderi and his family has been in the weaving business for over four decades.
Ansari used to get big assignments from various companies and earned 8-10 lakhs monthly. But, when COVID -19 hit India all his orders were cancelled and the production centre got shut and so did the looms. Ansari was able to understand the gravity of the situation and for the survival of not only his family but the whole weaver’s community.
“Due to Pandemic, we didn’t get any orders and were forced to stop our production” laments Ansari.
Kausar, who also holds a diploma in Textile Designing decides to step-in and help the community. As a social media user, Kausar thought of selling the products online, thus started posting the products on social media platforms. With her limited knowledge of these tools she wasn’t able achieve much.
During the first wave of Covid-19, Kausar by chance attended a digital draining program organised by Digital Empowerment Foundation. There she learnt about various digital marketing skills, financial literacy and at micro level how one can use social media tools effectively to promote business to reach the national and global market.
After the training, she soon created a separate account for their Business and started promoting the products through Facebook and Instagram. She also created a UPI Id for digital payments.
Kausar and Ansari were able to create an excellent network using their social media handles for the weaver community. Now, even their regular customers across various cities give their orders via phone call and/or WhatsApp. Their business has not only revived but reaching to another level of success. Through Kausar’s consistent efforts Aminuddin is able to do 30% business through e-commerce alone.
