South Indian Women Draw Maps to Their Business Success with Flour

Women in Tamil Nadu, South India have been using their skills in Kolam art – traditional drawings made with rice flour on the front entrances of homes – to sketch maps that help them decide where to set up their business.

The mapping project has helped more than 5,000 impoverished women entrepreneurs earn a steady income across six districts in Tamil Nadu, to provide for their families.

“Most of these women are illiterate and dependent on daily wages to survive,” says Indhumathi Radhakrishnan, coordinator with the Community Foundation for Children and Aging, an Indian affiliate of the charity Unbound in the United States, which supports the mapping project. “Drawing kolams comes naturally to them and they have used that effectively to understand the surroundings they live in. The maps show them the ground reality and future possibilities.”