SILK HANDLOOM

When we met Sunil, the passionate and caring director of the initiative, he carefully interviewed us to see if we shared his values. We were then invited to join him on a field visit, an hour’s auto out of town. In the rural villages the whole bottom layer of the family houses are dedicated to a huge weaving loom. The weaver, invariably the father of the house, sits in a rectangle hole in the floor underneath the loom. His wife and children sit spinning the bobbins, ready to be used in the weaving shuttles, using an adapted bicycle wheel as a spinning wheel. There is a man punching out the jacquard cards across the road, we don’t interrupt his methodical tapping as he translates a sketched design into dots. Every house you pass there is evidence of a loom, the village is a real hive of industry. Anil tells us this is just one of hundreds like this across the region.

Drawing on the many generations of skills and knowledge that has been passed down within the communities, the weaving industry is full of possibilities. Please contact us to discuss this further.

The life of a weaver is notoriously hard; long days and low wages, but there is an incredible initiative in Varanasi which has recognised this and has set out to improve it. The Weavers of Varanasi holds workshops to educate and improve working conditions of it’s many weaving partners. They work to increase public awareness and appreciation of the quality and skills at the core of this ancient craft.