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The smallest of gifts makes a HUGE difference.
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How we help...
Women are being empowered by working
together in small co-operative groups. They are taught craft skills.
They receive training and a small stipend.
When proficient, women can work from
home, earn money and thereby dignity.
They produce greetings and Christmas
cards, many with hand painted leaves (about 15,000 a
year), screen printed
gift bags, gift tags and bottle bags, friendship bracelets, cloth bags and
tea towels.
A work group also finishes hand carved elephants for the
tourist market.
Our Banyan Tree cotton bags are an important new development
from the tailoring and garment unit.
On any day you will find Raju our general
factotum and a number of our trainers, Malika, Usha, Sarala, Shorba and Priya,
all together with the daily group of women workers.
Actual numbers change from month to month but presently
we have three or four trainers and a variable number of trainees or workers,
all of whom receive either a training stipend or a wage.
Every item produced
is a job for someone and our workers are paid straight away for the goods they
produce.
At Kulapadda we have two buildings. The Banyan Tree Centre, our original ex-church premises, which has been enlarged and modified, and the much newer Woodbridge House; built and supported with funding from the two Woodbridge, Suffolk, Rotary clubs.
These two buildings are the heart of our training programmes
and the focus of our employment activites, or as Philip Matthew who manages
it says,
"Our
note book making unit, our leaf painting unit, our garment unit, and our screen
printing unit."
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