The Maker's Meet.
Shahab Naqvi
Media & Business Communications II Statistician - Rural & Microeconomics II Disability Rights and promotion of inclusive workspaces
This meet it about economic pursuits, and how it blends with an inclusive heritage of #culture and #crafts as its origin, so we encourage direct #community participation, with an aim that we all may benefit from it upfront. The other part is its cultural significance, which only lately, is reduced to a few artisans crafting for selective buyers. This however, in the long run, is seen as unsustainable, impolite; and is highly underrated of what culture and art implies to a demography and cultural #history like ours.
This workshop is intended to engage participants from diverse communities and also encourages participation of govt. officials, civic bodies, #industrialists, as well as other #stakeholders.
Handicraft is the second largest occupation after agriculture in the country. This occupational #heritage is invaluable and more than seventy five percent of the population is still engaged with these modest means; mostly as well as sadly, under a highly volatile probability for generating a steady source of income. These occupations infer different meanings and perspectives in different parts of the world, and even within the country - year to year, season over season. In a state like #Uttarakhand, fortunes really fluctuate with segregated population, infrastructural limitations, and generally cottage level entities prevail. However, these too, are only seasonal in operations and broadly, because of the lack of organized, consolidated efforts, markets, are unable to make economic progress; linger on and usually at most, cease to a glorified cause.
There is a potter’s hamlet in the neighborhood where we work, and there is a full-fledged woodcraft unit in Saharanpur which we had setup a few years ago. In between there is a wide range of #skills, dilemmas, independent #craftsmen, markets. We all are self-taught #artisans. This self-teaching is what is deeply culturally ours, because we can only learn under an open inclusive environment when we are #indigenous in our wisdom and observe art culturally, not adamantly defined by consumption.
Long time back we realized that the potters’ days were numbered, with the advent of other plastic, and other synthetic material. It is also the case with wood. However, they will not disappear altogether because there is still an occasional demand and a rising and unexplored opportunity to plant #consumer #consciousness.
Let’s put it this way. There were attempts to form cooperatives. With difficulty these could have been formed but it is an expensive affair. Expense is not the cost alone, it is also passive form of resistance, perhaps based upon many previous experiences.
Therefore, most public efforts ended with the formation of self-help groups. It didn’t give any real decentralized-shareholder shape to work, and perhaps, led to a state of large-scale occupational dilemma. What really helps though is stakeholder-ship and #autonomy and when it matures to #decentralization. We are referring to the regions we operate. "In fact, the best form of intervention towards inclusive #economic #pursuits would be the one, which, after a point, actually phases out." It would only be erroneous to draw a false narrative to substantiate corporatization of a robust-#equitable-multi-#stakeholder-#worker centric-#producer-#consumer #cooperative, or any similar financial framework as a replacement for an #apex body for regulatory purposes.
At the #grassroots, the whole dynamics change with the way we think, approach and implement a #program. We continue to advocate for the utilization of #public #resources. While private capital might be a feather, the soul of #inclusion is through public discourse and it is where the solution lies.
There is a need to mobilize and channelize #capital where community is in dominance. While today everything is monetized and centralized, growth at any cost is an outmoded and largely discredited concept especially within not so urban, rural communities. Although we are taking references from culture and crafts, we are concluding with involvement of #vulnerable communities in our work, including families of, and people with #disabilities. This is how we look forward to find a #resolve.
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Here, what we attempt to do via media and our #field presence, is to #weave our efforts in a more humanistic and an environment-friendly manner to realize consumer consciousness, cater to changing tastes. An inclusive environment wherein the population, especially those who are vulnerable, have an equal #opportunity to make a living and are not deprived of choices.