The current initiative was born out of a year-long study with 100 poor families in Ramanagara. Entitled the ''Financial Diaries of the Poor'', the study tracked the daily financial inflows and outflows of these families. Unsurprisingly, the one strong need that was expressed by a majority of the participants was that of a regular source of livelihoods. There were Muslim women among the participants who were already skilled in hand embroidery, and hence was born the idea of upgrading this skill, and marketing it. A group of women have been trained to upgrade their skills in hand embroidery. The department of women and child development, Ramanagara has sanctioned funds to train more artisans. IIMB collaborated with the Srishti School of Design to develop a range of hand embroidered accessories brand named ''Minchu''. Students of Srishti and IIMB helped test-market the products through sales at colleges and software firms. The initiative holds out the promise of sustaining itself thereby providing a livelihood to the artisans engaged in production since the response to the products has been encouraging. Revenues from sales helped pay wages of five artisans for a period of 2 months (ranging from Rs. 70-80/ day depending on the number of hours of work put in). Marketing efforts therefore need to be stepped up.