Raju PK & Gopalan family

The roads were narrow with alluring coffee plantations on either side. The place was Trikkaipetta. It is a paradise with greenery all around with the true smell of soil. The artisans of Trikkaipetta create marvels out of bamboo from generations. These can be used as show case items, key chains, flower vases and so on. Raju PK and Gopalan headed the crafts production.

The leg of Gopalan is paralyzed and with this disability he was able to produce artifacts in a shorter period. The entire family was happy seeing our team in the hope that something exemplary will occur in their life. The roof of the house has so many holes, which is like bullets pierced the roof during a gun battle. They have explained about the process of modeling with an exuberant zeal. Their happiness lies on making these bamboo products. They have created many an unpolished designs because of their lack of money to buy polish. They are creating bamboo products from ages, with the skill inherited from their ancestors. But the agony in their eyes can be felt easily. They served us with black coffee and biscuits. The black coffee was sublime and oozing with typical Wayanad flavor. We shared some of the customized bamboo craft designs with them. We encouraged them by elucidating about the reach and demand of bamboo products in the market. We embolden them that in UTHHAN, artisans decide the product price and not by us. Moreover they are still clinging on to their tradition after all these setbacks.

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Pushpavally & Group

The next stop was Mullankolli. A woman, who heads a self-Help unit, which makes artifacts out of grass welcomed us. A group of women suddenly assembled with their products made of grass. The products were flawless. It can only be made after hours of hard work, precision and concentration. These crafts can be used as fruit baskets, hats, flower vases etc . They testified that big establishments take their products in bulk, but the prices proffered are very low. But they still sell the products to lessen their miseries. The products are strenuous to make and the mastery passed on to them through their primogeniture. They don’t want to continue in this métier, since there is no real emolument. Workplace is nothing but a torn out house, where all the women gather and spend their time making these artifacts. They don’t have any idea about artisan craft board run by Government of Kerala. They told us that the tradition they follow can’t feed their family and it’s better to switch over to some other job.

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Ram Kumar Pal From Uttarakhand

Ram Kumar Pal is an artisan and a member of NAV JYOTI. Ram Kumar runs his NGO but he has to work as an artisan too. He is not able to earn a proper profit from his work. Being an NGO head he has to work as an artisan to get some more profit. He prepares swales, woolen jackets, woolen blankets which he can able to sell only in winters, its is the reason why he is facing problem in selling his goods. More than 63% of NAVJYOTI artisans come from Bora Kuthalia community . Uthhan is them training to work with silk and wool in a profitable manner . Largely based in rural India, weavers and artisans also find market access difficult. As a consequence, they’re dependent on the middleman to sell their products—while they garner substantial profits, the weaver and artisans are left with just a pittance instead of getting a reasonable price. Besides, there is no gain saying the fact that handlooms and handicrafts are a valuable and integral part of India’s heritage that need to be preserved and promoted.

UTHHAN focuses on capacity building in rural communities, and on creating opportunities for women and artisan families to make sustainable contributions to their villages. We are devoted to generating income for local people using only local skills and local, environmentally friendly materials. Our primary focus is to give as much as profit to the underprivileged artisan family.

Today, UTHHAN have network of nearly 5000+ artisans families who work together to grow, process, design and create products that generate income for local residents. Products range from raw natural to eco-friendly art supplies for children to textile printing and dyeing. Each product line is a part of high quality industry, which scale and compete in international markets.

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Terracotta

We met with artisan families in Odisha. Among them, most of the artisan families didn't have a shed to sleep and money to send their wards to the school nor proper health facilities to look after. We met with Mr.Abhimanyu, one of the Terracotta artisans of the Batahari, Chandanpur village of Kendujhar district. His condition is worst. The grief situation of the family made us feel about the extent of the work we at UTHHAN to do. The potholes, muddy surfaces and water scarcity left us dumbstruck.

Despite big promises being made during elections, the condition of these people never changed. But it goes on being more worst every year. Abhimanyu Terracotta artisan of Bataharichandanpur, Mr.Vijay, applique artisan of Pipili

Pipili village and many more. We listened to them very carefully and tried to sort out their problems. The lack of knowledge about the latest design of handicraft works, lack of shed for the making of those products and lack of raw materials have left them isolated in grief conditions. The artisan was stuck with poverty and hunger without a roof on their heads. Although sadly the poverty here is slowly making many craftsmen disappear from the place to form a new livelihood, they are doing a remarkable job by keeping this fascinating art alive even while their financial crisis makes it very hard for them to continue and preserve the art. The goal of UTHHAN is to make these art forms available to customers directly from these families.

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Clay Story

A recent interaction with the BANGALORE artisan who produce unique wares with copper, and clay, gave me a better picture of the current situation of the Indian crafts industry. All we heard was a sad story about the craftsmanship dying in their town. “Once upon a time there were fifty of us, and now, only two of us remain in the entire city of Bangalore who can join different colored into an artifact ,” says the clay crafts artist Mrs Jaya.

This seems to be the story of a majority of the old towns of India. The reason behind the loss of demand for these craftsmen’s unique products and their destitute condition is globalization and cheap Chinese goods flooding the market. Furthermore, they are either illiterate or poorly educated which makes them hard to upgrade their skill and to understand the market trends. Thus as a result of incompetence, they end up losing business and move to other professions.

Fortunately, all dark clouds have a silver lining and here is one too. While I was digging deeper to find a feasible solution . we got to know She and her husband have been striving to sustain their art form of making mud pots for several years. They together earned a paltry Rs 140 a day, which was insufficient to feed their family . They don’t have any place to sell their product till the date. Instead they are roaming all over Bangalore to sale their product . They don't have any upgrade designs. This is the deplorable state of most of the artisans in India, though the country has a rich and diverse history of art forms, with many traditional crafts embedded as a culture among rural communities. Recognising the constant struggle of artisans, uthhan took initiatives to promote their work during. Uthhan will eliminate the role of middlemen and distributors and the products directly reaches the end-users from artisans without any hassles through our platform.

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