To the extent that our small resources allow, we are helping through Fair Trade Livelihood Initiatives, which we consider crucial to the rehabilitation of these people. Sathya Handicrafts was set up through a donation from Vandanamu Fair Trade, immediately after the tsunami, initially with just three second-hand treadle sewing machines, a cutting table, a few old stools and a tin trunk, in the devastated fishing village of Chinna Mudaliar Chavadi, seven kilometres south of Pondicherry. Opened on 30th April 2005, this sewing unit now provides training and livelihood for about 15 women, who work what hours they can, depending on their essential family commitments.

For Sathya Handicrafts, the villagers mostly make cotton bags of different kinds - screen-printed shopping bags, bottle bags and bag tidies for storing and dispensing used plastic carrier bags. However, the sewing unit is designed to be a communal facility: although the income-earning work for Sathya Handicrafts takes priority, the villagers are encouraged to use the resources without charge to mend clothes of friends and family and to do there any other income-earning sewing work they can find.