Equipping women with skills in a variety of crafts

Ba Bapu Seva Sangham launches a year-long programmefor those aged between18 and 45 years

Jute craft is also part of the skill development programme. —Photo: C.V.Subrahmanyam

In a move aimed at providing a connect between market trends and industry needs, the Ba Bapu Seva Sangham has come up with a year-long free skill development programme for those aged between 18 and 45 years.

Clubbing a dozen craftworks such as fabric painting, jewellery making, blouse designing, paper craft, mehendi designing, chocolate making, and embroidery works, among others, the sangham has tied up with a number of resource persons to offer technical expertise to the participants.

At the launch of the programme on Thursday, secretary of the sangham Rahimunnisa Begum said that the vocational training was aimed at equipping women with skills in a variety of crafts.

“For any entrepreneur to succeed, understanding the market needs is as relevant as nurturing the skills. For instance, there is a boom in beauty and hair-care segment. Getting trained in this area will definitely add value to one’s survival skills,” she says.

Except a few training programmes like mehendi-designing, blouse-designing, and beauty care, most training modules are limited to three to four days.

Keeping the growing demand of garment business in view, the course also includes a month-long embroidery designing session that provides training in 21 varieties of the craft.

Resource persons who came forward to support the initiative say that there is a significant rise in the demand for craftworks.

“A couple of years ago, the scenario had been different. Today, we have schools and colleges requesting us to offer short-term or long-term vocational courses. Moreover, this kind of a platform will give us greater scope for building a new breed of clients,” says K. Vijay Babu, cluster market development in-charge of Pidilite, who is taking care of painting, clay-moulding, jewellery-making, paper craft-making and kundan and mirror work crafts as part of the course.

“The basic idea is to bring back the forgotten culture of hand-woven crafts by roping in women of different age groups and equipping them with a range of skills,” says Challa Mahalakshmi, president of the sangham.