Following the institution of an exclusive in – house store, a supply chain will be created and the weavers’ will be able to supply products directly to showrooms across the country. Partners in this initiative include:
Mother Earth Crafts:
Mother Earth provides livelihood to rural artisans through market opportunities, producing contemporary products using traditional crafts. Mother Earth is unique because it represents two ends of the spectrum, the artisan and the market. In order to cater to the distinctive demands of both segments it works through a hybrid model, a ‘for-profit’ component, Mother Earth Crafts Private Limited and a ‘non-profit’ wing, Mother Earth Crafts Foundation. The former involves retail, design, sourcing, warehousing and direct artisanal enhancement across its rural village centres, while the latter acts as a conduit for capacity building, skill training and design development.
SEWA:
Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is the largest member based organization of poor working women in India, with seven hundred thousand members in Gujarat and elsewhere. SEWA’s main goals are to organise women workers for full employment. The project would try to emulate SEWA model of creating women entrepreneurs in textiles.
Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajasthan:
BFC is also extremely well known craft center and they have e-commerce enabled outlet which can be viewed at www.tilonia.com. BFC has proved the linkages of raw material, weaving, crafting, designing and linking to the market beautifully and could be a great partner for guiding the proposed Center at Chanderi.
The role of Mother Earth Crafts, SEWA and BFC would be to procure base products and finished products and incorporate the products produced by the weavers’ SHGs in all its Retail Outlets.
