Bhubaneswar: A series of workshops were recently conducted in Kendrapara for the golden grass artisans of the district under Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) project. The workshops were part of the ongoing project: ‘Skill & Entrepreneurship Development of Women in Golden Grass Craft’ in Kendrapara district.
The workshops focused on lesser-taught yet important skills such as sustainability, conscious production, brand feedback, consumer feedback, modern day banking, GST and taxation, and basics of everyday financial management. The workshops were conducted by Sutapa Pati, Dean, School of Sustainability and Abhimanyu Sahu from School of Commerce, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.
The brand feedback and interaction workshop was executed in six sessions with six different brands that deal in the retail of handmade products. The six brands were a mix of local and national brands- Ikai Asai, Crafts Council India, Ficci Flo, Vintage Vistara, Simply Crazies, and DPR Artlife. The next series of workshops will be held later in the year and will focus on e-commerce, retail and social media and phone photography.
SANKALP was established under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) in 2018 to drive the ‘Skill India’ agenda, converging existing skill training initiatives and combining scale and quality of skilling efforts.
The SANKALP Kendrapara project is a pilot project under the national mandate and is being executed by MSDE, State Institute for Development of Arts & Crafts (SIDAC), H.T & H dept, government of Odisha, and district administration, Kendrapara, Odisha. The project focuses on the execution of comprehensive interventions across the Golden Grass (natural fiber) cluster in Kendrapara district of the state. The impact numbers are 3,000+ female artisans from 30-plus villages in the district.
The skilling and intervention areas of the project have been divided into: craft skilling, design and quality skilling, entrepreneurship skilling, soft skilling, marketing interventions, technology interventions, exposure and infrastructure. The artisans have been receiving regular orders via their social media handles and also through exhibitions and meets. The nuanced skills taught during the workshops aim at aiding the artisans to expand their market and become self-reliant.
