In his hour long presentation, Mr. Jinan narrated about his two year project for enabling the young artisans from the traditional potters community to take forward their skills as a viable livelihood option by equipping them with necessary skills, entrepreneurship, communication, designing ability, functional computer and accounting ability etc., and also providing them with few basic tools and equipments and linking them with relevant players.

His programme includes exposure of the young artisans to the present interest among the urban population as well as role of craft in the coming ecologically sensitive era, modern ways of marketing, internet and web, importance of developing new designs, its potential in the building industry and tourism etc. They are also taught basic computing, use of internet, email, digital camera etc. The whole process will be hands on. They will then in the final 6 months helped to establish a production centre in their respective villages, linking with financing institutions.

After the presentation, there was a scintillating discussion about the project. The audience actively participated in the discussion.

Intitiating collaboration between the community and the artisans

Gist of the project

This is a two year project designed for enabling the young artisans from the traditional potters community to take forward their skills as a viable livelihood option by equipping them with necessary skills- entrepreneurship, communication, designing ability, functional computer and accounting ability etc and also providing them with few basic tools and equipments and linking them with relevant players.

The participants, 12 of them will be given exposure to the present interest among the urban population as well as role of craft in the coming ecologically sensitive era, modern ways of marketing, internet and web, importance of developing new designs, its potential in the building industry and tourism etc. They also will be taught basic computing, use of internet, email, digital camera etc. The whole process will be hands on. They will then in the final 6 months helped to establish a production centre in their respective villages, linking with financing institutions.

The most innovative aspect of the project would be to get all the necessary support monetary and other expertise by making this in to a collaborative one. The two year long project would require at least Rs 24 lakhs – stipend for the trainees, travel , stay, equipments like digital camera, computer, wheel etc.

The idea is to open up for interested people to collaborate and make this in to a democratic and a co-learning process. Also making use of the connectivity the new technologies offer to link with as many people as possible. 2500 people putting in Rs 1000 is all what is required. lot of it can come in kind- donating camera, computer or hosting the trainees when they are visiting various cities. This is a major aspect of the project. They will travel to Delhi, Bombay, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad etc to get exposure.

The outcome of the project would be apart from the 12 youth who are trained in all aspects of the craft who will in turn influence the villages from where they belong, there would be at least 600 new products, a well documented material which can act as a blue print for the other crafts- brass, bamboo. textile, stone and a huge support base of dedicated customer collaborators.

Do see the sites www.kumbham.in and
http://my.opera.com/enableartisan/blog/ for more details.

Jinan