Empowering Rural Women to Start Small Businesses in Telangana

On 22 October 2024, the Girl Up Apara team travelled to SHINE NGO's women's shelter in Telangana to hand over four professional Singer sewing machines and five complete starter kits, the direct result of a student-led campaign that raised ₹54,500 and exceeded its original goal by 101%. Since that handover, 40 women at the shelter have had access to sewing skill training and the equipment to put those skills to work. Of the ₹54,500 raised, ₹50,412 went directly into equipment, tools, and welfare support for the women at SHINE. The remaining ₹4,088 covered the Udayaa platform fee (5%) and standard payment processing (2.5%), in line with Udayaa's deductive fee structure.

The Problem: Why Equipment Matters Women in rural Telangana who want to earn through tailoring face a practical barrier that goes beyond skill. Domestic sewing machines produce work of limited market value. Professional Singer-grade machines produce work that can be sold commercially, to tailoring businesses, garment units, and direct customers. The gap between the two is the gap between a side activity and a livelihood. SHINE NGO's shelter serves women from rural communities where formal employment has rarely been a realistic prospect. Financial independence, for many of them, has meant finding work that can be done locally, on their own terms. Tailoring is one of the most direct paths to that. The question was whether they had the tools to do it at a standard the market would pay for.

What was delivered

The Girl Up Apara team made the trip to SHINE NGO in person. They did not arrange a postal delivery or a third-party handover. They showed up on 22 October 2024 and installed the equipment themselves. Four Singer sewing machines and five complete starter kits, each containing fabric, thread, scissors, needles, and measuring tapes, were handed over directly to the shelter. Surplus funds of ₹1,422 were sent to SHINE NGO to address immediate nutritional needs.

What This Builds Toward

A Singer sewing machine at a women's shelter does not produce income by itself. It produces the conditions for income. The 40 women who now have access to training and equipment are at the beginning of a process that takes time: building skill, building consistency, building a customer base or a relationship with a local employer. The starter kits give them material to practise with from day one. The quality of the machines means the work they produce is good enough to sell. SHINE NGO is the structure that holds the continuity of this work. What Girl Up Apara's campaign created was an asset, and what the women at SHINE build with it from here is theirs.

In Girl Up Apara's own words

"Thanks to the generous contributions from our donors, we successfully raised funds to support women from rural communities in starting their own small businesses. This initiative aims to provide women with the resources and independence to build sustainable livelihoods through tailoring and related work. By equipping them with the tools to start their own ventures, we hope to give them financial stability, confidence, and long-term self-reliance." (Girl Up Apara, October 2024)

Impact in Pictures

Installed at SHINE NGO shelter, October 2024

Fabric, thread, scissors, needles, measuring tapes

Surplus funds for immediate nutritional needs

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