UNDP in Uttarakhand
Gulzar Bhai lives in Sahaspur, Uttarakhand. He belongs to a dying community of traditional weavers. Generations of his family have had this craft as their livelihood. But the weavers have been unable to take it to various platforms for marketing and generating revenue. The young have left the craft to acquire menial jobs. Few years ago, he decided to revive this drying craft, with the help of his family.
Women in the family like his mother and sister help in processing the raw material. Cotton, wool and nettle is spun on a charkha and turned into a fine yarn. Spun cotton is then braided into skiens.
The yarn is dyed using natural and vat dyes extracted from bark of trees, flowers, minerals, and other natural materials. They are soaked overnight and boiled to create the required colour. The yarn is dipped, taken out and washed and dried.
With the help of the charkha the dyed yarn hank gets converted into linear threads and is wound on a bobbin. The women in the family mostly help him with that.
The warp yarn is wound from bobbin to the warp beam. A big rotating drum is used as a warp beam to enable counting the number of threads as well as to help in the colour wise grouping of yarn. The yarns are stretched out, sizing is done by applying starch to add strengthen and lubricate yarn.
Before the warp is loaded on the loom the yarns are aligned. It is Wound around a frame and carried to the loom. Warp yarns are passed through vertically and horizontally. A hank of yarn is put into a shuttle and carries the thread back and forth.
His efforts made many of his extended family and community join him. They started to weave wool, fabrics and handloom saris as well. Soon local sales of handloom and wool grew. Participation at local exhibitions generated revenue and visibility.
Good sales and local exhibitions helped to spread the word. Soon good sales lead to the setting up of a small shop. UNDP adopted the project and provided training, design inputs, and helped develop better products with the weavers. Brands like Fab-India, Nicobar started to place wholesale orders with them. UNDP Uttarkhand helped to develop the brand as Sahaskar.
Gulzar Bhai now runs an independent store by the name of Sahaskar. He has added a variety of other handloom products and provides income generation facilities to those interested in the region. Sahaskar now runs on a self sustainable model.