Kutch Mahila Vikas Sanghathan (KMVS), is a collective of rural women located in the western Indian state ofGujarat. Striving for socio-economic and political empowerment, the over 4,000 KMVS members have come together to form self-sustaining producer groups.  Thanks to their sustained efforts over the past decade, these women have helped each other, their families and their communities extricate themselves from a vicious downward spiral of commercial exploitation by middlemen and traders, being forced to become daily or piecework laborers – some even abandoning their traditional occupations.