Rina Mukherji
Kolkata
TO many, the name Ankur Kala suggests empowerment of marginalised women. A brainchild of Annie Joseph, Ankur Kala was set up in 1982. Joseph spent many years in community development. She studied social work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and worked as a volunteer with Seva Sangha Samiti in Howrah. Joseph had seen Mother Teresa’s work at close quarters. Her parent’s home housed Mother Teresa’s first Shishu Bhavan in Kolkata. She realised economic self-reliance was most needed. “Charity is never good enough. Women have to be financially independent if families are to be saved from destitution in the absence of a male earning member,” she says.
Ankur Kala started operations when Seva Sangha
Samiti arranged a small place for Joseph at
Pilkhana in Howrah. “I started with a loan of Rs
900 and just five girls,” says Joseph. But the batik
and tie-and-dye training and the products that
were made caught on. The girls started earning an
income and when Ankur Kala managed
to move to its present spacious
premises at Park Street, many
members 
from its earlier group of
trainees joined in.
Ankur Kala has been more than a
pillar of strength for many young
and destitute women. Hameeda
was married off at 13 years of age to
a man who had tuberculosis. By the
time she was 14, he was completely
bedridden and passed away before
the year was over. Her father-in-law
did not have any steady employment,
while her husband’s younger
brothers were too young to run the
family.
Her mother-in-law and she would occasionally earn some money by doing domestic errands. The largesse of neighbours in the slum colony kept the family going. Thankfully for Hameeda, her sister and a relative knew of Ankur Kala. Hameeda broached the subject with her mother-in-law, who refused to let her attend. This made her move over to her relative’s place. They encouraged her to train for a vocation. That was how a whole new world opened for Hameeda some 15 years ago. Although unlettered, Hameeda found it easy to pick up snack-making at the Ankur Kala kitchen that catered to students and staff at the Rani Birla College. In a year’s time, her on-the-job training was bringing her an income. She remarried. But her husband deserted her even as she awaited the birth of her daughter. Today, Hameeda earns enough to live independently at a rented place with her 14-year-old school going daughter.
She is a senior production hand and can manage accounts, thanks to a functional literacy programme that has empowered her with skills to market the products she helps make. With her effervescent grin, Dilshad, 20, has a lot to feel happy about. She has managed change her elderly father’s attitude with her battle for gender equality and economic independence. “I had to win my mother over to attend a basic course in batik and fabric painting at Secom. My father bitterly opposed this.” Today, Dilshad has graduated to executing designs for the batik production team at Ankur Kala and her income sustains her family comprising her retired father, two brothers and herself. Ankur Kala also trains women to tailor bags, design wall hangings, stitch kurtas, and catering. Joseph got the support of her former alma mater, Rani Birla College, and Queen of the Missions School to help train the women. Since the institutions insisted on the food being cooked in their kitchens, the trainees and supervisors from Ankur Kala would have to be there every morning to make snacks for the sales counters.
Many other institutions followed, and the women were soon earning a monthly income. To make up for the loss of earnings during the holiday period when these educational institutions closed, Ankur Kala started a catering service for offices and NGOs. Besides, cooking at the institutions required the staff to be sent there in the wee hours. “It was unfair for these women, many of whom have very small children to look after,” explains Joseph. Hence, cooking at schools and colleges was given up for good. Instead, Ankur Kala moved into making and marketing jams, sauces and preserves. In subsequent years, pottery work and silk-screen printing for greeting cards were also introduced. Many of the pottery, batik, and tie-and-dye products are exported for sale through organisations like Ten Thousand Villages (US and Canada), Trade Aid (New Zealand), Artisans Du Monde (France), and Global Villages Store (Canada).
The remaining items find a ready market through Ankur Kala’s showroom on Meher Ali Road, while its dedicated sales team also caters to a loyal clientele door- to- door. Ankur Kala has also been helping other NGOs with vocational training in tailoring, batik, silk screen printing, dyeing and kitchen gardening as part of its outreach programme. Its showroom is used as a retail outlet for several products made by grassroots NGOs in and around West Bengal. Ankur Kala is now planning to develop its land in Sonarpur to grow organic fruit and vegetables .
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