Turning veggies into pickles, and women into entrepreneurs

One of the first requests that we received upon arriving in Hyderabad, was a plea from the local LDS Branch President to find a way to empower the poorest women in the branch. Many of these women are the sole providers in their home, but lack the education and skills needed to work at a job with a liveable wage. Despite these difficulties, these women and their children are active contributors in the branch, often at great sacrifice.

Working through the Relief Society, we were able to identify and bring together those with the greatest need. At our first meeting, we asked each woman what her skills and talents were. It actually took a bit of prodding as these women didn’t feel that had anything marketable to contribute. But it was fun to help them discover just how their skills could be turned into an income-generating venture.

After a sifting process, the women together decided on making (drum roll)… pickles! Yes, that’s right. They felt that pickles were something they could make better and cheaper than the going pickles in stores.

Pickles in India are unlike anything I’ve tried before. Definitely an aquired taste… which I am actively aquiring. They pickle most vegetables and many fruits. A load of salt and oil mixed with exotic delicious spices and chilis to make quite the flavorful celebration in one’s mouth.

Next, we came together to decide on a name. We threw around Telegu names such as Surya (sun) and Maradalu (sisters), some iconic names such as Obama or Mona Lisa (envision the logo as Mona Lisa holding a pickle- so many possibilities!), but ended up on following the pattern of many NGOs here and forming a rockin’ acronym: WEE (Women Empowered through Employment) Pickles. Next, Casey on our team designed a lovely logo. And thus, the birth of India’s latest and greatest pickling venture.

Here are the two main women producing the pickles, Rani

and Kumari,

at our inaugural sale. We tied gold bows on everything from the bottles to our hair, to make it “auspicious” (my favorite India-specific word meaning an event that is “important, favored by fortune”).

Working through the finances...

Roopkala (not pictured) is a very educated and wise woman who has been wanting to find a way to help her fellow branch members, and so has joined and was voted as our fearless group leader. She is absolutely essential to the sustainability of the project, so we are so grateful to have her on.

Within the first week, all 17 bottles of the vegetable pickles sold right out of their home, leaving only 12 chicken pickles on the shelf.

Here.... WEE..... go.....

Livin the Sibling Dream

One of my favorite things about being in India is my kid brother, Sean. While people might assume that I dragged him here with me, that ain’t the case. Last year when Sean and I were living at home together, we would often talk late into the night about going out and solving the world’s problems with his engineering skills and my public health/development passion. Shortly after accepting my position as country director for HELP International’s program in India a few months ago, I was approached by Matt Colling, a founder for Sain Terre (www.sainterre.org), about building “Soilets” in India.

The Soilet is a simple, inexpensive, and really innovative toilet system that employs really basic technology (like earthworms) to dispose of waste in a self-contained “mini-ecosystem” right there on-site. It is the perfect solution for places with little infrastructure (like sewer-lines), is much cheaper than septic systems, can be made with local stuff by local folks, AND… doesn’t smell.

While many underdeveloped nations have a great need for basic sanitation amenities, such as clean water and toilet facilities, India’s problem is exacerbated by cramming a billion people into this country.

So Sean is a tinkerer. Before he was old enough to ride a big wheel, he had the most insatiable curiosity for how things work, and a love for “inventing” all sorts of fine handicraft out of everything from toilet paper rolls to broken computer chips. So the minute the lightbulb went on that I may have an “in” to make our sibling dream happen, I called him up and told him all about the soilet. And he was a goner at that point.

Check out his rockin blog to see how he has taken flight with the Soilets:

http://seanhelpsindia.blogspot.com/

As you can see, he has now completely revamped the Soilet to make it Indianized, and in the process cut the cost and building time in half. I’m so proud of him.

Having Sean here makes it seem like home. Like, I could live anywhere if I had m’Sean. Early mornings we hit the streets on a run through the traffic and the less-than-awesome smells, for a few laps around the military field and finish it off with a rip-roaring session of laughing yoga with a big group of 60-year-old men. Most nights we take five times longer brushing our teeth cause we have too much to say through the foam about the funny or frustrating things that happened that day. He knows just what to say to make me laugh at any given moment when I’m stressed. He’s actually making a mango smoothie for us to share right now.

Aw. This is my Ode to Sean.