Handskart, India

Project name: Handskart

Project location: We are currently based in 3 cities across the globe including our Headquarters De Carnot, Le Kremlin Bicentre, Paris, France.
Our Warehouse is in A1-1, RIICO industrial area, Jaipur, Rajasthan. We are also based in Barcelona, Spain.

Website: http://handscart.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/handscart/

Project description:

Crafts have been a livelihood option in villages for decades now. Designers have worked with crafts, and so have government agencies. While other countries continue to recognize Indian art, we remain clueless about the same. Artisans themselves are limited to traditional designs, and do not have formal training in design or skill-development and therefore rely on external support reducing themselves to handicraft laborers. Our Project enables artisans to develop a sustainable livelihood through learning design, enhancing their skills and develop markets for themselves. Revival aims at recognizing each tribe's culture, art and spreading the same amidst masses. In time, we expect to strengthen the artisan's abilities to innovate, create their markets, and eliminate middlemen.

We strongly believe that to spread the message of crafts and culture we need to engage both the rural and urban audiences. At the rural level, we work with artisans and women's groups. The majority of the artisans are subsistence farmers or work as daily wage laborers. With other livelihood opportunities available, and limited demand for handicrafts, pursuing their craft is not a lucrative livelihood option. We work in collaboration with the artisans and their communities to understand the intricacies of their lives, their cultural heritage and the challenges they face in practicing their craft. Interacting with the communities helps us understand various social issues they face – like education for their children and health services. The approach we follow encourages artisans to incorporate their culture into the products they make for the urban market. This makes the products personal for them and introduces the customer to the cultural narrative of their community. In urban areas, we collaborate with schools, colleges, and other non-profit organizations to engage young people in the age group of 14-30 in traditional Indian crafts and culture. Our store is an active venue for workshops, film screenings, and discussions, that bring together people from all walks of life. As people come forward to engage in these activities, they get involved on various levels – from volunteering with us to connecting us to more people passionate about the issues we work on. While school and college students get motivated to volunteer with us, young professionals help us expand in their community and corporate networks. Based on our interaction with both rural and urban communities, we realize that there exists a curiosity in both to know about each other. Thought processes of both communities are hardly any different, but there is a need to create a platform to bridge the gap. It is this bridge that we seek to build through our activities and interactive events.

Indian craftsmen have been using traditional designs for years now, leaving little space for innovation in crafts. In urban markets, these products do not find a value for the limited utilitarian scope in them. Middlemen make the crafts expensive, and it ceases to be affordable for the masses. Many organizations work on Craft Preservation/Promotion, by offering design and marketing support to the craftsmen, however, none have empowered the artisan to grow by himself, thus making them rely on the organization itself. Our project follows a unique approach to addressing this issue–
1. Our design intervention, skill building workshops EMPOWER artisans to develop their own business and promote the same through our channels. We encourage the artisan to learn how to design his product, assess quality, map the urban market and make art pieces more relevant and adaptable to the global environment.
2. Our website is the first of its kind, where each craftsman, representing a state, has his own little “store” or “dukaan”. Orders received are directly communicated to them.
3. We encourage the artisans to participate in corporate events and activities to showcase their skills.
4. We organize innovative workshops and events with all age groups to encourage engagement with arts. For e.g, Street painting workshops were organized to paint used bottles and re-engineer them to make Lamps.
5. In an endeavor to promote dying crafts in urban areas, we have designed innovative products such as Card Games and Jigsaw Puzzles, that are based on traditional crafts and appeal to urban audiences.
Our key partners include cultural centers, universities, art galleries and artist groups, other Craft research and academic bodies. Corporates with CSR wings focusing on art, culture, youth; and most importantly, effective partnerships with artisans, and Self-Help Groups in rural areas. We would also be scaling our partnerships in the retail market both online and offline. We already share excellent relations with the Artesians and are working towards a lasting partnership with Alliance Francais. These partners would help us in the education and promotion of artists amidst different target audiences.

Goal and purpose of the project:

Did you know that the artisan sector is the second largest employer in the developing world, behind agriculture? That’s right: millions of people in developing countries around the globe—most of them women—participate in the artisan economy, practicing traditional crafts as a means to earn income and sustain their livelihoods. These numbers are exciting, and there are more where they came from. The global artisan economy is a $34 billion per year industry. Promisingly, countries in the developing world have a competitive advantage in this sector because of their rich cultural traditions, diverse artisanal skills, and unique raw materials. In fact, developing countries today account for 65 percent of handicraft exports around the world.

While these facts paint a powerful picture, the artisan sector still has a long way to go to reach its full potential as a sustainable source of income generation, employment, and economic growth for impoverished communities around the globe.
Economic growth is the most powerful instrument for reducing poverty and improving the quality of life in developing countries. Both cross-country research and country case studies provide overwhelming evidence that rapid and sustained growth is critical to making faster progress towards the Millennium Development Goals – and not just the first goal of halving the global proportion of people living on less than $1 a day.
Growth can generate virtuous circles of prosperity and opportunity. Strong growth and
employment opportunities improve incentives for parents to invest in their children’s
education by sending them to school. This may lead to the emergence of a strong and
growing group of entrepreneurs, which should generate pressure for improved
governance. Strong economic growth, therefore, advances human development, which,
in turn, promotes economic growth.

We help integrate artisans in Developing countries into the global economy by bringing their products to the international market and providing them with fair, consistent income for their work. Since day one, we have been committed to paying our partners fairly and in accordance with the Fair Trade Federation’s principles of respect, transparency and accountability. We believe that paying artisans fairly is both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do. It’s right because it honors the time, skill, artistry, and expertise that goes into the making of each product and treats people with the respect and dignity they deserve. It’s also wise because of empowering artisans—and especially women—is a powerful way to drive economic growth and sustainable development in communities around the globe.

Since working with us, our partners’ income has increased significantly (700 percent, to be exact) from approximately 25 cents a day in starting to, on average, $2.00 a day or more presently! These women use the income they earn to invest in the health, education, and well-being of their families. For example, today, 72 percent of our partners never run out of food (versus only 5 percent at the start); 89 percent send all or most of their children to school (versus 50 percent); and 90 percent have medical insurance for their entire families.

We like to call this phenomenon the multiplier effect—that is, the reverberating positive impact that investing in women and youth has on their families and also in their communities. Therefore, Artesian sector will lead to economic growth and reduction in Poverty.
We are addressing the 3 SDG's including:
1. End Poverty
2. Gender Equality
3. Decent Work and Economic Growth

"In handicrafts, there is a continuous swing between utility and beauty. That swing has a name: pleasure."

The world has never been as wealthy as it is today, yet it is also increasingly unequal. We have an excellent opportunity to develop an approach to poverty eradication through an interesting and original angel: Handicrafts. Their products are purely functional and economical, artisans answer a specific need in their communities, which in return support the artisans economically through purchasing their craft wares, and socially through recognizing the artists' skills and role in transmitting traditional culture.
We designed and implemented "Handicrafts and Employment Generation for the Poorest Youth and Women" in a broad variety of cultural contexts, in which the development of small Artesian was used as a poverty eradication tool. In this approach, income and employment generation are the strategies used to address the problems of extreme poverty and hunger.

There is broad agreement that economic growth is a powerful tool for combating poverty. No country or region in the world has successfully reduced poverty in an environment where there is no growth.
Traditional knowledge, vernacular languages, oral history, scientific knowledge, skills and expressions such as arts and crafts and creative communication, are expressions of who we are, how we learn, and how we relate to others. Handicrafts lead to socio-economic and cultural development factor which leads to eradicate poverty from countries.
The broad objective of the Ten-Year Plan of Action for the Development of Crafts was to provide a common framework for future programs and to allow governmental and non-governmental organizations involved in this sector to hold a permanent consultation on the implementation of complementary activities. However, due to lack of Technology, the spread of crafts was limited to particular states in a country. The lack of data illustrating the impacts of crafts production on income and employment generation often result in an underestimation of the importance of the crafts sector in reducing poverty. Additionally, the lack of quantitative data demonstrating the feasibility of crafts-related projects further hampers the financing of such projects. As such, funding remains a significant problem faced by most national craft associations.

The goal of our project is to illustrate how the development of artisanal skills and providing them an online marketplace could go in favor of disadvantaged social groups, especially women and youth no longer enrolled in school, could contribute to poverty eradication through income generation and employment in a wide variety of cultural contexts
With our Machine learning platform outreaching the Global market now Artesians have the chance to reach to international market and set new standards in the Creative Industry.
Till now we have impacted lives of more than 500 artesian and have provided them better living condition through income generation by their creative skills. In the coming 2 years, we have planned to impact 3000 lives and provide a better living condition to them particularly in Africa and South-east Asia.

We begin with an aim to create livelihood opportunities for handicraft artisans and women across Developing countries to provide them with an online platform to showcase their talents. Ms. Simran Grover, the co-founder of Handscart, has an extensive work experience in the Social sector and understands that providing equal opportunities to rural woman could actually eliminate poverty from the Society. Her credentials as a creative professional include various campaigns and she has also done television commercials with India’s finest advertising agencies like Euro RSCG, Law and Kenneth, Mudra, Interface, R.K.Swamy and so on. Some of the impressive brands she has worked for are Nestle, Maruti, AMW trucks, Mahindra, Oreo, Dabur and many more.
According to her, Handscart was an outcome of the thought of giving back to the society. After having created successful campaigns and looking at the ill-mindset of people about a woman working out of her home, we realized we can create a brand for someone in desperate need and sell their products on their behalf. Africa and South-east Asia is a heritage of art and craft and handloom in the world. However, that is dying because of the lack of organized markets, proper loan services, and unfair competitions; all this is killing the artisan industry that provides employment to the largest number of people after agriculture. So the need of the time is to revive our artisans and women from rural pockets of Developing countries and create livelihood opportunities for them.

We vision to empower and provide financial independence to women and artisans through skill development. And, at the same time create fair market place through the online retail website of Handscart. We are a For-profit, social enterprise. We primarily focus on enhancing the skill sets of underprivileged women and then provide them with raw materials like thread, cloth, paint, brush, needle etc to create products. We also believe in the flexibility of work and therefore, provide remote, work-from-home options for these women too.
In many ways, Handscart is a revolutionary brand that provides a platform to an artist who has not been able to keep up with changing time and fallen prey to the modern technologies. The artist who have not been recognized for their art, We as a platform aim to give a new lease of their talent.
We have impacted lives of hundreds of rural woman. One of those is Ankita. Ankita contributes towards the amazing collection of products with Crochet work. She is helping Handscart revive the traditional art of crochet work. Before joining us, Rinki and her husband were settled in a remote village. The village didn’t have any basic facilities. There were no proper roads, no electricity supply, the village also didn’t have a school. But, Rinki was determined to educate her children. Both she and her husband weren’t educated.

To achieve her dreams and secure the future of her children, Rinki and her husband shifted to the town near New Delhi. Rinki joined Handscart and now contributes towards the household expenses. Now her children are enrolled in a school and she pays the fees for their education.
Like her, we have impacted many rural women who has transformed their and their family lives working with us and providing a better life to their children.

Our Impact is measured with a number of Artesians impacted by our platform. Till now we have impacted more than 500 artisans and their income generation has raised by 700% in 2 years.

In the next three years, our project will aim to evolve through Expanding our Reach, Entering New Partnerships, and Involving in Art Advocacy.

a)Expand our reach:
-to remote villages and impact more families, and the community life.

-to national/international markets

-to various schools/colleges/universities for volunteer participation

b)Enter New Partnerships

-Through effective collaborations and partnerships, encourage rural volunteering and internships

-Village Hospitality Services: During these visits, people would be exposed to the culture of the village, and participate in community activities.

c)Involvement in Art Advocacy:

-Use traditional art/craft forms to address various social issues/for communication

-Art-Culture based research

-Publish stories based on Folklore.

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

My first exposure and in-depth understanding of crafts happened when I worked on a UNESCO-Crafts Council project while pursuing my MBA in Communication Management. The project gave me the opportunity to interact with artisans and understand their struggles first-hand. All around me I saw a culture rich with traditional values and crafts, but no takers around. With livelihood opportunities through craft slowly dwindling, artisans were moving to alternative sources of income generation – like agriculture and daily wage labour,I realized that what was needed desperately was to revive the art forms and spread awareness about them in the urban spaces and ensure that the artisans made a decent living through crafts. The idea was to have the world where the 'handmade' is given the respect it deserves, and the artisan is recognized for his efforts. It is important for the artisan to understand Fair Trade, and participate in the same, with an all round understanding of the pros and cons, profits and losses involved in the global market. For arts and crafts to remain alive, they must interact with consumers. Handscart, therefore, started as an idea with some four artisans who were willing to be a part of the “handmade revolution”. As I traveled from village to village, I realized that the story of crafts was a never-ending story, which the world needed to hear. With my previous experience of communication and brand related projects, I strived to explain the concept of markets and brands to villagers, and today, they understand the concepts of pricing and packaging too.

Use of prize money:

Our Impact in past 2 years has been an achievement for us. This includes:

•The number of artisan families we impact, has, therefore, grown significantly. In two years we have impacted the lives of more than 500 artisan families.

•In our first year, we held one local festival and several workshops. In the second year, we grew to do art installations, multi-city projects, and workshops and partnered with several organizations to take arts to a different level. In the coming year, we have international collaborations planned, need to be put into effect.

•Our income generation activity with underprivileged women has expanded significantly. The women are now run training centres where they train 30 women each. Their income in most cases have gone up by 70-100%. They are better equipped to send children to school, and set up small businesses.

We have made a crucial partnership with Organizations and Corporates including:
1. HCL – They have been a corporate gifting partner since the year 2015.
2. DLF Malls – Active partners and sponsors for workshops with artisans and urban dwellers.
3. Pearl Academy of Fashion – They have been our partners for the last two years on the development program, Green Room. They sponsor artisan travel and stay so the students can learn from the artisan and the artisan can learn contemporary skills from the students.
4. Our retail partners include The Orange Bicycle, Either OR, Maalgadi, Masala Chai, etc. They help our artisans spread the crafts on a wider scale.

By 2017, we aim to impact 3000 Artesians worldwide. With the prize money, we want to reach our operations worldwide and spread to Latin-America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia where the life of millions of people depends on the craft.