With the involvement of a group of XLRI students, Parichay, a non-profit organisation for development of local artisan, has inaugurated its ‘design and learning centre’ at XLRI’s SJVK campus on Saturday to upgrade social entrepreneurship.
With the help from organisations like Tinplate Company of India Ltd (TCIL), which provided it the seed money, Kalamandir, an NGO, as well as East Singhbhum district authorities, ‘Parichay’ is going ahead with the idea of reviving and promoting various art forms available in the state.
Starting initially with crafts involving bamboo work, Dokra metal
casting, grass mat making, Paitkar paintings and terracotta, ‘Parichay’ aims at adding more crafts to its bouquet as it aims to open more centres across the country.
“Essentially the idea is to provide a more sustainable and non-migratory livelihood to our artisans who are currently facing a lot of trouble pursuing their crafts,” said Vikas Sharma, who along with co-founder of ‘Parichay’ Siddharth Shah, have already made up their minds to skip XLRI’s campus recruitment programme (CRP) during February-March 2009 in favour of ‘Parichay’.
According to TCIL managing director Bushen Raina, members of Team Parichay’s zeal to pursue social entrepreneurship was commendable since fresh MBAs from XLRI get lucrative placement offers from domestic as well as global companies.
Talking to FE, Sharma said, the USP of Parichay’s product range would be fusion art where it would be trying to fuse various craft forms of Jharkhand.
The B-School team aims at giving artisans better tools and infrastructure and also use engineering inputs from its team members to upgrade quality of the products. It is also looking at design innovation by inviting designers from National Institute of Fashion Technology, National Institute of Design and those from other design institutes who would be willing to send their interns to the ‘Parichay’ design learning centres.
Speaking at the inauguration of the design & learning centre East Singhbhum deputy commissioner R Agarwal said the design & learning centre would not only help the local artisans hone up and update their skills as per contemporary tastes, but would also provide them with a ‘forward linkage’ in the area of marketing their products so that their artisanship become a sustainable exercise without the involvement of middlemen.
The deputy commissioner, while extending use of the DRDA sale-cum-production centres coming up at each block in the district to ‘Parichay’, advised that it should not only focus on producing souvenir items but should also produce utility items.
