SEEMA Rupaidiha
Social Endeavor to Elevate Women's AwarenessArchive for Rupaidiha
Our Women
It’s getting a little hot over here in the plains as our ladies weave and craft their creations in the rural Indian village of Rupaidiha. In our small women’s development centre, there are 12 ladies with us at the moment and they are making great progress through our training program as they learn how to tailor, weave and make jewelry and handicrafts.
These women have been through a lot in life, coming form abusive back grounds and ending up with no one to turn to for help, some had turned to prostitution before coming to SEEMA. It is our great privilege to train these women with skills that they can earn a living with for the rest of their lives and support their children. It is also priceless to see their children have an education at the Assembly of God Church School, also set up by our founders, Roy and Jennifer Ramble.
Roy and Jennifer Ramble moved to this small rural village some 24 years back as they saw the need in this illiterate region and since their vision was birthed those years ago, out of it has come SEEMA, AGC School, a girl’s home called Mahima Niwas (House of Glory), Literacy centers throughout the villages, and most recently, a free English literacy centre aimed towards border smugglers as it is strategically placed what we have named, ‘Smugglers Lane’. As you can imagine, this has been revolutionary for this area and I feel very privileged to be a part of it! Please see the side bar for links.
As resources are always low over here, we’ve decided to move forward and learn how to use vegetable dyes for our yarn in hope to make a good variation of colours to use for our weaving. Hopefully this will help us cut back on expenditure and help us generate some much needed profit for these women. There is not much of a market here in India for these products and so they rely entirely on a foreign market in England and America.
At the moment we are trying to take SEEMA through a transition and a bit of a make over by rethinking our products and making them more marketable. It is a slow on going process, trying to over come obstacles such as lack of resources, time and lack of funding, but we are determined to do our best for these women as they depend on us here in this enclosed area of illiterate India. As funding is an issue, as it is with most NGOs, we are only able to take on 12 women at a time and hope that with this makeover SEEMA will have, we will be able to get SEEMA out of the red and into a profitable business for these ladies.
With the government trying to push for India to have developed status, funders are turning away from India and looking towards other countries who are asking for help. However, with 70% of the population of India living in villages, mostly illiterate, this large sector is far from being developed and needs help more then ever.
These women who come to SEEMA for help have been beaten, cast out of their society, abused, tricked in to sex trafficking, forced into prostitution and disregarded by the community and government. It is far from a woman’s world over here, but with the efforts of Roy and Jennifer, the lives of these women have been turned around!
By Alina Ramble, daughter in-law, supporter and friend of Roy and Jennifer Ramble.
SEEMA Rupaidiha 