Sewing Machine Program
Program Details
Mrs. Saraswathi Surapaneni began a Sewing Training Program in 2004 in Vanasthallipuram, Hyderabad. The program is free of cost to participants and relies on donations. She began the program in order to provide assistance to underprivileged women in Hyderabad, by helping the participants learn a new trade which enables them to help their families improve their financial conditions. Her motivation for creating this program was to help those really in need.
Motivation
Saraswathi herself was in this profession for long time and had helped support her own family, using her income to improve the future of her children. She moved to Hyderabad from a village in Krishna district and was able to raise two daughters very well by partially using the income from this sewing profession for their educational expenses and other expenses. Her two daughters studied well, and both have Master degrees, are both married and settled very well in London.
Her family would not have achieved its current success without the income she received from her sewing efforts. Her children have been fully supportive of her efforts. Her daughter, Neeraja contributed funds to pay for the training costs including material and labor costs. She also created and registered a nonprofit organization called "Prabha Women Welfare Foundation" in 2006 at Hyderabad to ensure integrity and compliance with all local rules and regulations.
Progress & Results
When she started training the first participants, she found that some of the women were very poor and were not in a financial position to buy their own sewing machine after completing the training. HFH agreed in principle that the sewing machines could be donated as long the participants were adequately screened to qualify as recipients of the donated machines.
Mrs. Saraswathi has carefully screened the applications for sewing machines before she has forwarded them to HFH. She has trained over a hundred people so far from 2004 through present .HFH awarded 68 sewing machines to the poorest women so far. Mrs. Saraswathi’s daughter and friends have additionally awarded over 15 machines. The details of our awards are given below. The applications and the pictures are available for all these 68 recipients at the HFH office.
This program was suspended for 5 years when she relocated to London to provide care for her grandchildren in London. In 2015, she relocated back to Vijayawada for 6 months of the year and decided to revive this program in collaboration with HFH. She currently runs the training Program from her family home at Tadigadapa, Vijayawada, AP, when she is in India.
HFH has awarded free sewing machines for 8 groups of deserving women from the start of the program in July 2005.
| Date | Number Trained | Number of Sewing Machines Awarded | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2005 | 12 | 5 | Vanastallipuram, Hyderabad |
| Feb 2006 | 11 | 7 | Vanastallipuram, Hyderabad |
| Jun 2007 | 11 | 8 | Vanastallipuram, Hyderabad |
| Jun 2008 | 11 | 8 | Vanastallipuram, Hyderabad |
| Feb 2009 | 23 | 23 | Kudaravalli, Krishna District, AP |
| Jul 2015 | 12 | 4 | Tadigadapa, Vijayawada, Krishna District, AP |
| Jul 2016 | 10 | 9 | Tadigadapa, Vijayawada, Krishna District, AP |
| Apr 2017 | 13 | 4 | Tadigadapa, Vijayawada, Krishna District, AP |
| Apr 2019 | 6 | 6 | Tadigadapa, Vijayawada, Krishna District, AP |
With the aid and education received from this program, they have been able to earn money that enables them to support their families as professional tailors. It was discovered that some of the young girls, who had received training in Vanasthallipuram area of Hyderabad were able to settle down, marry good spouses because of their independence and earning capacity.
