On Saris and Passion With Effie Thomas

Effie Thomas, Founder and Director of the AHC Foundation and The Parvai Shop.

Effie Thomas brings a certain crackling energy to the room, or rather, to the virtual meeting. She dons a million-dollar smile with a sort of flamboyant elegance that makes her instantly likable. At the same time, she wears her sari (an unstitched drape that women from the Indian subcontinent wear) like she is wearing the stories of the weavers who have made it. Her entrepreneurial voyage with the Ambassadors of Heritage and Crafts (AHC) Foundation and The Parvai Shop is dedicated to doing exactly that: uplifting Indian weavers – whose products are being pushed out of the cultural fashion scene by their cheaper, machine-made counterparts – and making sure their struggles are being heard. India has a dramatic history with handlooms (wooden frames that artisans use to weave fabrics from natural fibers) – one that features invaders, victims, and an entire revolution. It entered Indian culture at the time of the Indus Valley civilization. Weavers soon became an integral part of every Indian village. However, after the British rule began, colonized India unleashed a particularly harsh clampdown on its traditional weaving system. Machine-made imported yarn arrived and subsequently snatched away spinners’ livelihoods. With middlemen gaining power, weavers’ incomes began diminishing. Their export market also collapsed because of the levy of foreign duties. Then, with Gandhi came the Swadeshi movement that encouraged the use of hand-spun cloth. But, even in the post-independence era, handloom continues to be bombarded by a plethora of problems – globalization, competition from the power loom and exploitative middlemen have left weavers stumbling towards poverty.  A sari worn by an Indian woman in a painting by Raja Ravi Varma. (public domain)

To people like Thomas, creations born from handlooms represent the madness of cultures and colors that the country is. They personify the India that loves to celebrate, the India that tells her children heroic stories of her warriors, the India where even the most unimaginably different people live together.  “We all claim that we’re skilled when we go to universities and get fancy degrees. Well, these weavers are equally smart in their profession. Weaving requires unique dexterity and mathematical calculations. It is intelligence, skill, and deftness combined, but people don’t recognize that.” It is for this reason that Thomas’ passion project has been about championing for handloom weavers and artisans. She notes, “To me, the primary challenge that weavers face is that they have lost the pride they used to get from doing their job. Culturally, there is no recognition given to them. They want to toil on the streets because they think that it is far more dignified than weaving. Along with this, they’re also abused and they don’t receive proper wages or credit for their work.” She has always lived in a ‘close-to-the-culture’ environment, one where she surrounds herself with handicrafts and hand-spun clothes. But she soon realized that doing only this isn’t enough.  “I understood that for change to happen, it can’t be just one individual’s effort. It is always a community that can bring about change. The impact of me having handcrafted furniture in the house or me wearing khadi (a hand-woven natural fiber cloth) is very limited. It’s great to be a patron, but it isn’t changing anyone’s life. If the change was to have an impact, then I knew I’d have to work with a community of people. That was the intention of starting the Foundation.” In 2016, united by an undying love for the sari and the need to bring about a change, nearly three hundred women came together on social media. Their dialogue and discussions would culminate in the formation of the AHC Foundation in January 2019. The Foundation consists of twenty dedicated women now.  When asked about what bound them together, Thomas smiles. “To me, it was clear that from day one, I will invest my time and energy in finding people who can shoulder the responsibility. I had a clear picture of what was ahead of me. The idea was to be people who don’t just preach, but also practice. It wasn’t about who was doing more and who wasn’t; it was about who was ready to take up the challenge. I can very proudly say that though the Foundation has regressed in number, it has progressed in quality. I know that I’m always backed by these 19 women who know that if we have identified a cause, it is worth working towards.” The Foundation is the literal epitome of women taking the business world by storm. If anything, their camaraderie is an ode to the very concept of sisterhood, a rebuttal to the notion that women are programmed to lash out at each other. The Foundation directly supports weavers, thus eliminating the need for middlemen.  “We want to create a platform where the consumer, the artist and the product come together. All three have a stake in the process; all three of them have responsibilities and jobs to do. At the Foundation, these three pillars are built every day at an equal pace. Everyone does their job with dignity and we give them the recognition they deserve.” 
An Indian weaver at work. (Courtesy of the Parvai Shop)

The Foundation meticulously documents every step of the process on their social media platform. The products are then featured on The Parvai Shop, which was launched on Aug. 7, 2020, which also happens to be National Handloom Day in India. Their handicraft portfolios from Punjab to Kerala work undeterred during the pandemic as well. This success, Thomas says, should be attributed to the value of trust.  “People told us to build a space to bring weavers together so we could supervise them better. But our weavers have always been working from home because we didn’t want to constrict or control them by bringing them together under one roof. They may make mistakes, but we wanted to give them their freedom. We decided to trust them with the process. So far, it’s been successful. We’ve completed many cycles of production in this past month.” Non-profit work lies high on the agenda too. Through collaborations with non-profits like Goonj, the Foundation touches every aspect of their weavers’ lives. “During the pandemic, we partnered with Goonj and distributed masks, clothing, and three months’ worth of food supply to the weavers,” Thomas says. “Additionally, for the whole of last month, we put AED 10 ($2.72) aside every time we wore a sari. On National Handloom Day, we were able to give all our weavers bonuses.”  The Foundation has also hosted numerous textile trails and workshops. But perhaps, their most important objective has to do with young adults.  “If we haven’t been able to influence or impact youngsters through this, all the effort we’ve put into supporting these weavers suddenly becomes pointless. Leaving the upcoming generation with a sense of responsibility for this cause is my utmost priority.”  They try to do this with a summer internship program at the Foundation that they may now decide to repeat every six months. Now how can all of us become ambassadors of our heritage and crafts? Thomas says it’s pretty simple.  “As a consumer, our primary responsibility is to educate ourselves on the process behind a product, to understand that behind the cloth we hold, there is a process involved, fatigue involved, families involved, lives involved. Humans have the potential to create a domino effect – when one person changes, the people around him/her start changing too.” A sari featured at The Parvai Shop. (Courtesy of The Parvai Shop).

And the million-dollar question: why does Thomas love the sari so much that she decided to start an entire Foundation and a business dedicated to it? She laughs and then says, with unequivocal pride dripping from her voice, “It is through the sari that I show the world that I am an Indian; how proud I am of that part of my identity.”    

About the author: Malavika Rajesh is a sixteen-year-old author and student from India, currently living in Dubai. Writing from the age of five, she firmly believes that a pen is the most powerful weapon to bring about oceans of change. Her book "Watch Out!," a cybercrime thriller, has garnered praise in several media outlets as well at in a plethora of events. Rajesh uses her platform as an author to spread the simple message of using words to one's advantage, to inspire change and to give a voice to those rendered voiceless. She is a feminist and an advocate of gender equality, writing pieces in her blog and speaking extensively on the issue. Journalism has been her passion since she was nine; she has written for the national newspaper and anchored on national radio stations. She has won major literary and academic awards and also engages in community work.