The Better India · 13 hours ago

Basket Weaving Livelihood: Chennai Women Earn Income

Behind Chennai's IT corridor, where women spend mornings cleaning corporate offices, Siraj Khan saw something others had overlooked: skilled basket weavers with no way to reach a market. A single mother who had rebuilt her own life through years of financial strain, she recognized the gap between craft and income, and co-founded Thalir LEED to bridge it. Now each basket carries a nametag with the maker's name - a deliberate choice that ensures the artisan remains visible in the transaction - and women earn between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 during peak months. But what has emerged alongside the income matters just as much: as hands move through loops of wire, conversations open into something deeper, creating what one woman describes simply: "I stopped feeling alone."