Connecting urban communities to rural stories

#HumansOfSaidanpur is trying to share simple stories of everyday life from Saidanpur village in Uttar Pradesh through Baank-e-Loom’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. The inspired hashtag is an effort to make people aware of India’s rural culture and connect people from urban spaces to rural stories. Baank-e-Loom is a project initiated by DEF in partnership with Ericsson, under the former’s Digital Cluster Development Programme, to digitally empower the weavers and youth of Barabanki district and increase their livelihood. Meanwhile, it’s been a season of trainings for Baank-e-loom stakeholders — weavers, women, children and youth.

A Women Entrepreneurship Training was organised in collaboration with the Jute Board of India to train women in making jute products at the Baank-e-Loom centre in Saidanpur. More than 75 women showed interest in enrolling for a tailoring course or a jute-bag making course. It was heartening to see women take a break from their domestic chores to step out of their houses to attend a discourse on how they can become entrepreneurs.

Shaheen, one of the attendees, said, “Such opportunities open my eyes to what all we can do with just a little effort”.

Another training was conducted for 15 young men from Saidanpur. This group of youth was trained in the area of sales and marketing of wireless network development. Participants were taught to use survey tools to understand requirement of wireless needs of people in villages surrounding Saidanpur. This was a one-of-a-kind experience for the youth in understanding a local business, and making it sustainable. Mohammad Ali, a carpenter by profession, is one of the trainees. He says that this sales and marketing training would help him scale up his local carpentry business too.

In the month of April, products from Baank-e-loom were exhibited at the 4^th Social Media for Empowerment Awards 2017, organised by DEF, at Indian Habitat Centre in New Delhi. The event helped the team to understand the taste of people in urban cities and their opinions on purchase of handlooms.