While India possesses a tremendous tradition of handicrafts, many artisans struggle to keep their skills alive but also to satisfy an ever-increasing demand of high-quality products and designs. The sector is highly unorganised and the artisans lack access to key resources, such as information on market trends, raw material, adequate credit and technology. ACCESS is currently implementing 3 on-field handicrafts projects.
Rajasthan
Revitalizing the Mojari Cluster: Udaipuria
While a significant investment had been made in the Udaipuria cluster by UNDP through RUDA in the past, due to flawed exit strategies, the plight of the mojari makers slipped back to subsistence levels once the Project was over. In 2008, ACCESS reinitiated a strategic initiative in the Udaipuria cluster to support the revival of this traditional craft of making rural footwear through vegetable tanned leather.
Tricks and Twigs; A marketing intervention for women artisans in the Tal Chappar Sanctuary
Tal Chappar boasts of being the home of the black buck. The Government of Rajasthan started an ambitious project to train the local women in making products out of the natural fibre available in the region. Although the Government employed very well known designers like Bibi Russel, it kept faltering in making the right sustainable market linkages. At the behest of the Government of Rajasthan, ACCESS undertook a marketing support intervention for the women artisans of Tal Chappar.
Understanding Urban Value chains: Jaipur Jewellery Artisans Development (JJADE) Project
The project focuses on an emergent sub sector, viz fashion jewellery, and is supported by the SEEP Network USA. This was a competitive international bid, and ACCESS managed to be among the nine projects that were approved. JJADE is unique and complex, as it seeks to address both social and economic challenges that the unorganised sector faces. Social protection will be taken up under the project with initiatives including school for working children and training for migrant labourers, besides engaging with the value chain at all levels. The project, located in Jaipur, intends to reach out to about 20,000 artisans during its period of 3 years, providing them social security, access to finance, access to better technologies, better designs, new markets through Fair Trade, developing the entire value chain while ensuring the productive engagement of primary artisans.