Willpower Exposition
Women are surfacing and flourishing in every field and business is no exception to it. More and more female entrepreneurs are not only establishing their enterprises but also evolving and expanding them, making it obvious that they are no lesser than their male counterparts. Women of Jammu and Kashmir are also creating and holding up to their space in this arena, coming forth with their innovative, intelligent and successful ventures. Today, ‘We The Women’ has brought for you two such entrepreneurs from the valley, who might not fit into the typical business woman shell but their zeal will prove to you that they are the boss; their own boss.
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Binish Bashir Khan and Omaira Qayoom Khan are two young, vivid and enthusiastic women entrepreneurs of Kashmir, both in their twenties, who have been making headlines for their innovative venture and thriving business, which flourished during odd time of turmoil last year. Founders of ‘Craftworld Kashmir’, Omaira and Banish belong to Tengpora By-pass and Chanapora By-pass of Srinagar district, respectively. They were also teachers before they got shut down in their places due to disturbance that hits the Kashmir every now and then. On the bright side, it gave them time to channelize their scattered efforts onto a serious business enterprise. Today, these confident ladies have a new horizon to look forward to; the commerce they leaped into gave their dreams a kick-start ignition as well as endless fuel to fly. Not only that, it gave other women around them and beyond, an inspiration of how one can survive and boom even in limited environment and scarce resources. I bet you must be curious to know more about these girls, so without further ado let’s dive into their journey.
Omaira did her schooling from Netaji Memorial School and went to Higher Secondary Kothi Bagh for secondary education. For her graduation, she attended Women’s College M.A Road. During her B.Ed. at Sarfaraz College she met Binish. Am alumni of Shining Star School, Binish had gone to Higher Secondary School Amira Kadal for her secondary qualification. Although she too graduated from Women’s College M.A. Road still, she met Omaira only in the year 2010, in Sarfaraz College from where she did her B.Ed. Since then, the duo is supporting and growing with each other. After that they opted for Masters in Sociology together through distant education and alternatively joined a school as teacher to earn some money.
It was when they moved to The Tree House Preparatory School, where the teaching timing were from 10 in the morning to 2 in noon, Binish proposed Omaira an idea to start a venture in the field of art and craft as they had abundant of time to themselves; to which Omaira responded positively. Although it seems like the plans we often make with friends, but these two actually went forth and executed their plan. Before this Omaira and Binish were not familiar with Social Media, but on being suggested by Binish’s younger brother to spread their work on social media, they did just that. After getting positive response on various social platforms in December 2015, Omaira and Binish started working under the banner of Craftworld Kashmir wherein they sell stuff they make, online through their Instagram and Facebook page. While Omaira is admin of their Facebook page, Binish handles Instagram.
Craftworld Kashmir is the best example of using technology as marketing tool and establishing an online business. “We believe in Kashmir, we are the first to have started such a business setup. We feel utmost pleasure when someone else contacts us and share with us their story and how we inspired them to start their own business,” says Binish.
Omaira and Binish share similar degree of madness about their venture. According to them, the foundation of Craftworld Kashmir is the honesty and passion among them, which bind them in first place. “Basically we both had certain sets of skills which we used to give time occasionally and let out as hobbies; for me it was crocheting and other art work and for Omaira it was music and creative writing. Bottom line was that we both wanted to do something more, which would not only make us self-sufficient and empowered, but also soothe that itch and satisfy our souls. We were passionate, all we needed was a direction and outlet; Craftworld Kashmir provided us with all of that,” shared Binish.
“Before starting Craftworld Kashmir we were doing crochet work at home, but it was not giving us the boost we needed to keep on doing it because of lack of feedbacks and appreciations. Our innovative ideas used to remain among ourselves only. But as we appeared on social media, our friends, friends of friends, in general everyone and anyone who came to know about out work, appreciated us. They went as far as saying that we are reviving an old dying art in an innovative way to meet today’s needs. It was followed by the unending chain of requests from friends and well-wishers. That concreted the idea to make it official but we realized that the most difficult part was marketing and reaching out to people, which we was getting covered automatically, online,” shares Omaira. Today Omaira and Binish boast the fact that they have bags, tags and cards by their name under Craftworld Kashmir.
Their business is basically based on their self-taught skills and talent and goes on to highlight their endeavors and self-established institution. What was previously hidden in the four walls of their homes and confined to distribution among family, friends and relatives, was now available for whole world to see and own. Although they started with crochet booties, they did not stagnate at that and have been evolving ever since, exploring new possibilities with each passing day. They share that they surf a lot to get inspired from what is happening in this field all over the world as well as communicate with the clients, to create something new every single time. As of now, they make handmade stuff which not only includes crochet booties but bags, hand pouches, mobile pouches, wall hangings, baskets, tiaras, rubber bands, headbands, ponchos, beanies of any style, cowls, boot cuffs, hand warmers, shrugs, coasters, curtain tie backs and cushion covers. They also indulge in fabric painting; paint bed covers, cushion covers, ‘Kurtis’, wall hangings and dresses. That’s not all; they also carry out pot painting as well as Henna designing. But next to crochet work, their most cherished work is ‘Gutta’ jewelry, a lost tradition which is again being adorned by women of all walks of life, especially the brides.
Since they didn’t require any substantial financial investment, their real investment was their time. And we all know how hard that can be. But that was not the only problem. Omaira and Binish had to deal with problems like lack of supplies but as mentioned earlier, these ladies have evolved as their business and like any surfacing business women, they are tackling their problems smartly. They have established a circle with shopkeepers, to bring for them the supplies which are not otherwise available. Omaira and Binish aim to strengthen the old tradition where women were the strongest link in the chain of Kashmiri handicrafts, they were the Pashmina spinners, the carpet weavers, the Sozni artists and more. Therefore, last year when the sales raised, they trained and employed a few other girls- Maryam, Saima Khan, Henna, Bisma and Shaista- who all are from far-off areas and so work from home. Since there is no proper workplace so the order is distributed among themselves which they finish well within the deadlines. They also encourage freelancing and have a young male freelancer Nazar Nazir, who according to Binish, is one of the few male crocheters, probably the only one around.
Moreover, being an online enterprise there is no middleman between the manufacturer and the customers, which not only helps in making the price of these handmade and home products at affordable, which is otherwise very high, but also establishes a very friendly relations among them. Unlike other goods, people are observed to get more attached to the handmade, customized goods they buy, probably because it is one of their own. Today, Binish and Omaira are not only getting abundant of orders from as far as Chandigarh, Delhi and Mumbai but also offers to collaborate as well as assist in fashion blogging and other such projects.
Women are often not let out for many reasons which are sometimes strange and a couple of times obvious; sometimes these restrictions come from the family and society and at other times, self imposed. Though, it is every woman’s right to live free with dignity, journey of Binish and Omaira, reminds how women never cease to surprise by surviving through the odds. They are reminder that if all the doors are closed, with hard work, dedication and above all passion, we can create our own doors and make our own pathways. To women, the only message they have is to follow their heart; they believe that it is never too late to start doing what your heart wants.