When success knocks with magnanimity, it becomes supreme. Humans of Gaya brings you a story of a change maker. A lady, who in the truest sense, is source of inspiration for numerous small-town talents. The personality under discussion is Usha Varia, a textile designer and development practitioner who hails from Gaya. Varia, the youngest of seven siblings at home, completed her schooling from Bal Niketan Sadhana Mandir, Gaya and graduated from the National School of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. She received Ford Foundation International Fellowship in 2006 and completed her masters degree in International Development & Social Change from Clark University, USA.
Usha embarked on the creative journey in 2009 with just 20 women and now finds herself with 120 women, well-equipped with creative expertise, and keenly interested to synergise their efforts with Varia’s endeavour. For Usha, design is a tool for social change and it can well be used to solve the challenges. She is of a belief that design can’t be put within constraints of availability of resources. For her, the best designer is one who can pull up wonders with the least available resources. A designer should be swayed away by anything natural- colours, twigs, leaves or even squirrels hurling through branches.
She is fond of morning walk which perhaps is the time when she decodes whatever plan she scribbles late night to implement in her work. Along with textile designing, her NGO Samoolam, also works with silk weavers and sources stoles from Bhagalpur, to which they attach crochet flowers and beads for a personal touch.
In a conversation with Humans of Gaya, Usha credits her mother for her feat and creative acumen. She says, “The seed of Samoolam was sown with the help of my mother who is an expert in crochet craft and supported me with her creative social entrepreneurship journey to alleviate poverty for women in her area. I have had one thing very clear in mind to give women the necessary livelihood skill so that they can empower themselves socially and financially.”
Usha has also been consultant to various national and international organizations in order to establish social enterprise models at the grass-root level. She strongly holds the basic philosophy of ‘Giving Back to Roots’ as Samoolam trains the rural women from Gaya with skills of innovative crafts fashion & home accessories to help market their products at national and international level. Usha’s expertise, her works and contributions can be visited at www.samoolam.com
“Samoolam was my small dream to do something for community where I am born, which slowly started becoming true by bringing positive change in lives of women. It’s where my roots lies and I will always be obliged to my family, place and people. The small seed of Samoolam has converted into a big tree and I hope this continues and give shed to more needy families there. I wish many more young generations should come ahead and start brining small changes to their society to build a better world because positive ripple effect can be very powerful (sic)”, Usha adds.
Usha Varia is a fighter in a sense that she aspired of something which Gaya could have never been a platform for. Thus, her success notches, with the kind of noble background she has, a different level altogether. She defied almost all odds to set a precedent for each one of us who tend to breach limitations of dreams and achieve something unheard of.
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