For six years, an ISU professor has helped low-income women in the slums of Mumbai, India, to make a living through an organization called MarketPlace: Handwork of India.

Mary Littrell, professor of textiles and clothing, discovered MarketPlace – an organization that hires low-income women to make clothing and quilts to earn a living – while she was working on a book. Littrell and Marsha Dickson, associate professor of apparel textiles and interior at Kansas State University, were writing a book about alternative trade organizations such as MarketPlace when Pushpika Freitas, one of the founders of MarketPlace, approached Littrell and Dickson and asked them for help with funding, Littrell said.

Littrell said MarketPlace receives funding from the Earthwatch Institute, a non-profit company that provides funding for projects that involve mainly research, conservation or education, according to the Web site. The funding will enable her and Dickson to travel to India three times for two weeks each over two and a half years.

Since Littrell has worked with MarketPlace, she said the organization has been very successful.

“Their sales have gone up every year,” she said. “They sold $1.4 million last year.”

The only real requirement to work for MarketPlace is very low socio-economic status, Littrell said. About 350 people work for MarketPlace, with only 15 men, she said. Therefore, the organization’s main emphasis is on making women’s lives better, she said.

“You have to be very poor,” Littrell said.

“They give priority to single mothers and widows. There is only a handful of women where their husband is making more money.”

Littrell said being skilled at the craft isn’t required, because the women can learn how to be an artisan. Making a significant improvement in the women’s lives is more important, she said.

The apparel made by MarketPlace is all made from fabrics that are hand-painted or dyed, Littrell said. Many of the same women who started out with MarketPlace from the very beginning are still there, she said, with the goal being to help a small group of women in a big way.

“There have been a very high number of women that have made significant improvements to their homes, such as a better roof, floors, windows or buying a TV,” Littrell said.

In the 98 interviews the professors conducted during their visit to India during May and June, Dickson said, all of the women had shown an “increase in their quality of life since they started at MarketPlace.”

After the two and a half years are over, Littrell and Dickson will write another book on their findings from the study, Littrell said. Even though they won’t be doing research after that, both Littrell and Dickson said they would like to keep track of the women and see what happens even further down the road.