Inside a dingy lane at Cuffe Parade's Ambedkar Nagar slum, a minor revolution is underway. A climb up a rickety ladder, leads to a poorly-ventilated 100sqft mezzanine room, burning from October heat, where around 10 women are seated on the floor, right next to a table fan, cutting pieces of cloth. After spending several hours cleaning fish at Colaba's Sassoon Docks, these women have finally managed to steal some time for themselves. For the last six months, they've been coming here, thrice a week for three hours each day. To learn stitching. The assurance is a new life that a skilled labour of this kind, can promise.

The initiative called Hamari Silai is the brainchild of three young men in their 20s—Maruti Chauhan, Mohan Rathod and Dhanraj Chauhan, all residents of Ambedkar Nagar. A year ago, the trio that works as football coaches at the non-profit, Oscar Foundation, decided to start a tailoring business for sportswear. While they hired a professional tailor to get their business going, they soon realised that they could also extend the model to help members of their community. "Most of the women at Ambedkar Nagar, either work as maids, or at the docks, where they de-shell prawns and clean fish," says Mohan Rathod, 21. "For every kilo of fish they clean, they make just about Rs 20. We've seen so many women toil away, without the guarantee of a better life. Their husbands, many of whom are alcoholics, are of no help either. The conditions they live in are deplorable. We wanted to give them an opportunity to learn a new skill that could make them more independent," Maruti adds.