Bhavani Cheneta Sangam in Chennekottapalli in Anantapur District in Andhra Pradesh, is livelihood initiative was setup in 2007 by the Timbaktu Collective, a grassroots organisation working on rights, ecology, livelihood and enterprise in rural Rayalaseema for the past three decades.
The Bhavani Cheneta Sangam is made up of first-generation young women weavers who are high school dropouts, widows, abandoned by their husbands, disabled or from difficult backgrounds. Today, Bhavani has grown into an energetic, enthusiastic and enterprising group of young women who dye and weave handloom saris and materials from a range of natural dyes.
Bhavani Cheneta Sangam is perhaps the only group in India constituted of young rural women from different religions and castes, who are not from traditional weaving families.
We sit down to talk to Nagmani and Sandhya, two weavers, to find out their stories about joining Bhavani and how being here has changed their lives: