Threads of a new life

IN A sense the Chennai-based Crafts Council of India's `Work Study Centre' for children working in the aari embroidery sector, brings to life, in a relevant contemporary context, the spirit of paramparic craft knowledge, which craftspersons and their children traditionally acquired in familial and familiar surroundings. According to Ananda Coomaraswami, it was a spirit that embodied the very essence of India's hereditary craft knowledge, learnt as a labour of love and holistic learning, a striving for perfection in a congenial atmosphere. Alas, much of this traditional mode of knowledge transfer vanished in the last century, leaving behind, by and large, a trail of languishing crafts, alienated groups of craftspersons and, in some cases, their children caught between the demands of modern schooling, ancient learning systems and growing poverty.

In some 40 villages around the Sriperumbudur area, for close to a century, families have practised the craft of aari embroidery as a means of livelihood. In fact, Sriperumbudur's aari embroidery is considered to be the best in the country.

Done with aari or hook on cloth stretched tight over a frame, this beautiful embroidery has been much in demand historically in African countries such as Nigeria, the Middle East, and increasingly, as haute couture embellishment in Western fashion houses and in India. However, what caught the attention of CCI, a non-profit, non-government organisation, working in the crafts sector, was the enormous number of children working in aari embroidery. The children were very often forced to leave school due to dire poverty. Many were totally illiterate and literally `sold' to aari units where they were exploited or ill-paid.

This bleak scenario provided a perfect platform for CII to simultaneously address the area of craft development and sustenance as well as the all-important issue of child in craft. Obviously, such children had to have compulsory schooling but could craft be used as an opportunity for all-round education, rather than as a deterrent? And could not a scheme of learning be devised whereby these children imbibed both formal academic learning and familiar craft skills which could later give them a choice of tools of employment? And, so a dream was born at CCI, to open non-formal education-cum-aari embroidery training centres for Sriperumbudur's craftschildren, based on a holistic hands-on approach to learning which would also include street plays and folk theatre with relevant themes, environmental education, exposure to rudimentary marketing and skills such as pottery, art, gardening etc. From the inception of the Sriperumbudur project in 1996 through months of planning, brainstorming and foot slogging to today's tally of 12 CCI centres, the Crafts Council has worked in close interaction with, and support from, local communities, village elders, mathar sangams and so on. Along the way financial support came in the form of $ 82,211 by the Japanese Government in 1999 that covered the entire infrastructure expenditure of the project, and made CCI's dream a reality.

Today, there are 12 fully functional centres in the villages of Mambakkam, Pallanallur, Salaiyaru, Santhavellore, Keerananallur, Kanthur, Mettupalayam, Sogandi and Mathur. A total of 90 children are on the rolls. The children, aged between 6-12 years, attend the centre for three years after which they are ready to join mainstream schools, failing which they can always utilise their embroidery skills, learnt at the centre, as a tool of employment.

The academic education at the centres follows the non-formal education curriculum worked out by the State Resource Centre, which trains the staff of the CCI centres and makes periodic visits to the units to monitor the programme. There are three levels of the NFE programme, on the completion of which students can be integrated into the mainstream schools. The embroidery curriculum is handled by a master craftsman and involves a three- year regimen at the end of which the child is proficient in the finer aspects of aari embroidery.

CCI's Non-Formal Education and Craft Training Centre at Yechuri was inaugurated on August 24. The 19 children and their parents, village leaders and others were happy that they could look forward to a secure future.

It is said that vision not backed by action remains a mere dream. And action without vision flounders. But, a marriage of vision and action leads to movements such as CCI's Sriperumbudur project, which if successfully sustained and replicated in all craft communities of the country will not just save our craft heritage but create a breed of enlightened, educated craftspersons who could steer the country's heritage into the future.

PUSHPA CHARI

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