Threads of Dignity

In Andhra Pradesh, India, a Rotary club spent a Corporate Social Responsibility grant of about 250,000 dollars on something simple: sewing machines. More than 200 women received high speed commercial machines, and 800 women total were reached by the project.

The numbers that matter came after. One woman said her income has doubled. Another said she used to worry every day about feeding her family and now sleeps peacefully. A widow who had relied only on a government pension gained independence. One woman earned enough to buy a second machine and hire another tailor.

In Visakhapatnam, the same project opened a tailoring center for transgender women. One member put it plainly: people respect us now because we earn with dignity.

This is the kind of project happening across the Rotary network our club belongs to here in San Juan Capistrano. The tool was a sewing machine. What it bought back was dignity.

Source: Rotary International's blog, blog.rotary.org, https://blog.rotary.org/2026/09/08/a-sewing-machine-a-smile-and-a-new-beginning/