Usha's sewing schools train women near India's Kanha tiger reserve, giving them economic independence over six months. The program has reduced human-tiger conflict and improved forest protection by involving women in conservation efforts.
Kanha is a one-of-a-kind experience for Usha's Silai School program. It reached out to the villagers who live on the edge of the tiger reserve and mostly depended on forest resources for survival.
When you are working in the rural areas, you cannot bring about any meaningful change, either in the economy, the environment, or in conservation without harnessing the cooperation and the energies of the ladies. They say in English, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. So it was necessary to bring the ladies into the movement, and one way of doing it was to make the Usha Senai School. And we have to say thank you to Usha International. They teach our girls The girls are taught for 6 months, they sit for an exam, they are given a measure of independence, and that helps us to do our work in conservation, in environment, and in the economics. Without women, we cannot do this job.
The Forest Administration says that the experiment has worked impressively. It has enabled better conservation of the forest and the social-environmental ecosystem. Most of all, it has been able to involve villagers in efforts to protect the tigers, reducing the man-animal conflict.
These ladies, their fathers, their brothers, their husbands, their sons, they are all working to save the tiger. When the family is committed to saving tiger, then the tiger does get saved.
