The Lady Bamford Charitable Trust approached AIACA in October 2018 to undertake a verification process for the craft of scrap weaving and knitting, being practised by a cluster of women at Devli village in Palwal Haryana, near the Ballabhgarh unit.
The cluster consisted of 16 women regularly working on multiple crafts like knitting, crochet and scrap weaving. They have been practising these skills for the past 17-18 years without any formal training. Yet, they have learnt these as intergenerational skills passed on within families.
AIACA aims to build these women artisans in Devli into a sustainable scrap weaving enterprise while simultaneously developing a coherent identity through strategic marketing and brand building.
AIACA initially identified 20 women artisans; however, the cluster can expand to 30 women; the rest come intermittently for work on a piece-rate basis.
AIACA started this project intervention with 20 scrap weaving artisans where key strategies like new product development, weaving skills, skill development through production, business skill development were adopted.
Some key assumptions behind the project are that the skills being practised by the women artisans are being handed down over generations; hence qualify as local crafts, indigenous to and embedded within the context.
So far in this project, 25 women artisans have advanced skills to undertake a sustainable weaving enterprise and have an increased understanding of financial and business planning (costing, pricing, quality control and enterprise management).
