Weaving is a traditionally male dominated occupation in India. However, Sally Holkar has turned it into a viable option for women. She founded Women Weave Charitable Trust in 2003, an organisation that trains women in marginalised sections of Meshwar, and increasingly to other parts of India. Women Weave provides vocational training to highly marginalised women in the spinning and weaving of locally produced cotton, where much of the cotton production and dyeing involves organic processes.

 

Other programs run by Women Weave include Eye care program, and the Handloom School Program, offering both boys and girls a one year course which includes design, textile technology, business, digital technology, language, communication, ethics and sustainability.

 

Women Weave  is working towards setting up an institute through which handloom weavers across India can learn to use computers, speak English and use alternative yarns. With the assistance from the National Institute for Design, the National Institute of Fashion Technology, and other institutes, this initiative trains women weavers to market their weaves through social media.