Sophia Rajkumari currently resides in Bengaluru but she hails from Manipur and today she has become a role model for numerous women residing in North East India. She is a hugely successful entrepreneur and what makes her special is that she has combined artistic cultural heritage from her state along with compassion. Not is only is she running a profitable business but along with that she is also making a great positive impact on the lives of many North Eastern women artisans. The name of her company is Chumthang Crafts every single product that this company sells is sourced from Manipur.

Chumthang Crafts is set up amidst lush greenery and serene environment in a farm named Lake View Farm. From this farm, Sophia Rajkumari promotes the arts and crafts of Manipur in the other parts of India and abroad. She has joined hands with some self-help groups and co-operative societies in Manipur and through them she provides employment to women who weave artistic water reed baskets and traditional fabrics. Her company offers various products to its customers including products ranging from handwoven and hand-embroidered cotton and silk sarees, stoles, shawls, table clothes, table mats, cushion covers, bedspreads, traditional quilts, vanity bags, baskets, mats, jewelry boxes and many more. The idea to open Chumthang Crafts stuck Sophia’s mind when she read an article about the plight of young widows in Manipur. The article deeply touched her heart and she decided to do something in order to help these women.

Her first step was to try to set up a corpus fund in order to provide some monetary help to them. However, the NGO that posted the article was not able to provide her with the details of those ladies. However, she was able to locate some women artisans and weavers from interior regions in Manipur. It’s been about four years since she started working with two different self-help groups in order to help these women. She has valuable knowledge regarding opening bank and post office accounts and packaging their products on their own. Sophia Rajkumari hopes to continue working with these women artisans from her home state for a long time to come.