Alka Sharma is the founder of ‘Aavaran’, an organisation promoting Rajasthan’s traditional textile printing craft through women’s self help groups (SHGs) With her perseverance Alka has established ‘Aavaran’ as a fashion brand and helped more than 200 women.

Alka Sharma was born in Didwana, Rajasthan and belongs to a very humble and intellectual family, where her father was an IPS officer, and mother a homemaker. She was a very sincere and obedient student since her childhood. As her father was an IPS officer, he wanted her to do an elite job, but she was so fascinated by the Indian arts and crafts culture that she decided to pursue her career in it.

Talking about her career in the arts and crafts sector, Alka says that she had never thought of taking admission in NIFT or in NID but as she was very fascinated by the Indian craft culture like durrie making, embroidery, thread jewellery making etc, she decided to make a career in it and took admission in IICD- the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design. After establishing ‘Aavaran’, she got a project from the ministry of textiles called “Ambedkar Hastshilp Vikas Yojana ''. It's a five year plan and different groups of women are trained for different works in the project. They started marketing their products through the exhibition ‘Dastkar’ and got a good response. Later, they got a big boost when they got orders for their products from FabIndia.

When asked about her achievements, Alka says that once they went for the Dastkar exhibition in Chennai with ninety-four garments, and only two were brought back. The team was so much encouraged and motivated that they started working with more enthusiasm.

Alka says that initially she had to face several challenges, as when they started marketing their products, the printers of Akola considered them as a threat. Later they had to move from there and she, along with all her workers and craftsmen,  shifted to Udaipur. Alka further says that they are still struggling to sustain in the market.

Alka says that their main motive is to promote the textile craft of the Mewar region upto the national and international level. She also thinks that handmade crafts should not only be meant  for luxury, although they are price sensitive, she wants everyone to wear it.

Alka feels that Covid was good for her personally as she got time to spend with her kids. She thinks that due to the covid experience people have started valuing their relationships. In the field of crafts, Alka says that due to covid we started selling our crafts online. Before covid we did not have enough time to think about online selling, but we made it possible. However, covid was not good for business but they made up by producing and selling lakhs of masks to Hindustan Zinc.

When asked, Alka says that if she could go back in time, she would like to work over her marriage, as she has given so much time to Aavaran, that she was unable to give time to her family.

Finally Alka wants to say that persistence, hardwork and discipline are very important in life. She further says that we must take advice from our elders and experienced people, but we should follow our own intuition too.