The designer helping artisans CoWIN

Sonica Sarna, a designer based in Delhi, is helping hundreds of weavers, printers, and dyers who form a part of the fashion supply chain, register for COVID-19 vaccinations

A few weeks ago, Sonica Sarna put out a message asking for volunteers to help artisans register on the CoWIN website, at the time available only in English. She was surprised when, in three days, she had 90 sign-ups. Sarna, who runs a design company that works at the cross-section of fashion, education, and activism, and helps brands abroad navigate the Indian supply chain in the most sustainable manner possible, knew how overwhelming an online system could be for craftspeople. “From12 years of doing business with craftspeople, I knew that they may not know what Google is, what a website is, or what a browser is,” she says. She also reached out to artisan community partners for the numbers of craftspeople: small businesses who manage orders, worker cooperatives, NGOs, or sometimes just the informal leader of a group of weavers, printers, and dyers. Of one of the few partners that responded quickly was Lavakumar Bharata, director of the Pochampally Handloom Park that works with about 300 artisans weaving handloom cloth. Bharata, who is still grappling with payment not coming in from big clients, says about 65% of his work force are women and 70% are under 45. “We immediately sent the list of weavers to her. We did not have all the phone numbers, so we had to find many people’s, which we did.”