CraftHER LiA – Week 2 Recap

For my Management in Motion Challenge, I’m on the Central challenge, CraftHER by Swara—Voice of Ladies, based by @Asha Scaria Vettoor. Situated in Kerala, India, the challenge is centred round conventional Indian handicrafts in a wide range of trades and the amplification of the proficient ladies artisans in these areas. The cohort is made up of six students. We’re travelling round Kerala and dealing with completely different companion organisations. 

In our second week, we travelled by practice from Cochin to Thiruvananthapuram, the capital metropolis of Kerala, to work with our second companion organisation, SEWA Kerala (Self Employed Ladies’s Affiliation). SEWA is a central ladies’s solely commerce union for casual employees throughout most states in India, connecting ladies throughout a wide range of trades, together with handicrafts. Whereas working with SEWA Kerala, we stayed on the SEWA Rural Centre exterior of Thiruvananthapuram within the hills and forest designed by architect Laurie Baker. The forest setting contrasted with the hustle and bustle of the Cochin city setting from the earlier week. 

On our first day, we spoke to Nalini Nayak, the founding father of SEWA Kerala, and acquired to know some SEWA members. We heard in regards to the essential work they do advocating for, connecting, and organising ladies employees in Kerala. I’m so grateful to have had the chance. 

On Tuesday, we visited two of SEWA’s Federation of Reed Staff items, run solely by ladies (all SEWA members). These proficient ladies artisans use conventional bamboo and reed weaving to create beautiful conventional and modern handicrafts. We had the distinctive alternative to study bamboo and reed weaving from these ladies artisans. Attending to know these unimaginable ladies and listening to their tales was a really inspiring expertise. We have been in awe of their artistry, ardour, and creativity!

On Wednesday, we toured the paper-making unit on the SEWA Kerala Rural Centre. We discovered how the unit makes handmade paper by recycling textiles and paper. They use handmade paper to create lovely paper crafts, showcasing the chances of recycling. We labored on making a brochure showcasing the attractive paper merchandise made by the unit, which we offered to Nalini within the afternoon. 

On Thursday, we visited a pottery society the place we met extremely proficient potters who’re SEWA members. Later that afternoon, we had a session with Nalini, discussing our challenge with SEWA and feminism. It was actually impactful studying about how Nalini developed her feminist beliefs and speaking to her about first-wave feminism and our personal feminist beliefs. This dialog will keep on with me for the remainder of my life. We have been additionally joined by some monkey guests on Thursday throughout our morning yoga and once more within the afternoon, which introduced some laughter into our day!

Lastly, on Friday, we presented and collaborated with SEWA Kerala on the tasks we had been placing collectively all through the week. Ellie and I labored on making a social media plan for the launch and preliminary posts for a SEWA Kerala Instagram web page (@sewa.kerala). We designed posts and graphics to launch the Instagram web page. After collaborating on the publish content material with the SEWA crew, we helped them launch their Instagram web page. It was thrilling to launch an Instagram web page with them and collaborate with them about how their mission and extremely impactful work might be shared within the social media area. I discovered a lot with SEWA Kerala this week. It was an unforgettable, profound expertise crammed with a lot studying and progress.