| Sustainable Livelihood 
            through Corporate Linkage     Subroto Roy              
            sroy@sdalt.ernet.in 
 Kutchh, 
            famous for its handicrafts, added one more product to its portfolio. 
            When we at Development Alternatives, with the help of its sister 
            concern 
            
            
            TARA, introduced hand 
            made paper products in the region.  The region is best known for 
            its  colours and artistic skills, especially the embroidery skills 
            and block printing. These were ideal skills to apply in making 
            handmade paper products. 
            
            
            With the support from 
            FICCI-CARE, a group of 45 women have been trained making hand made 
            paper products (HMPP), in record ten months.  These women, from the 
            earthquake ravaged villages of Kotda and Ajapar in Bhuj  districts 
            can not only make products, but are now well versed in costing and 
            pricing of the products as well.  An eye for quality has been 
            ingrained into the whole process. With the help of templates and 
            semi mechanized tools, they can now compete with other manufacturers 
            at present at the national market. 
            For establishing 
            marketing linkages and managing the whole system, a team has been 
            placed there (by DA) that includes a professionally qualified 
            marketing executive, two production supervisors and an assistant. 
            This team, along with the group of women, is running the system as a 
            business entity. The products have been designed with the help of 
            experience and knowledge gained by DA, through 
            
            TARA, which is 
            actively engaged in the promotion of HMPP from TARAgram, Orchha.  
            Professional help was taken from designers from NID to design new 
            products that emphasize the inherent characterstics  of  hand made 
            paper, both in process and the end product. 
            The products are 
            carefully designed to cater to specific market corporates. They 
            include items that may find a place on a  CEO’s desk and in 
            conferences and support the current corporate drive of building up 
            an  eco-friendly image. The products are now being marketed under 
            the brand name of “KOLORS OF KUTCH”.  
            The initial response 
            has been very encouraging as corporates and institutions in 
            Ahmedabad and Mumbai have promptly placed orders for   visiting 
            cards,  letter heads, greeting cards and calendars, files, folders, 
            document boxes and other gift items. 
            There have been 
            regular monthly orders for over one lakh rupees that provide wages 
            of  40 rupees per day to every group member.  The professional cost 
            is still borne by project funding to ensure sustainable livelihoods, 
            without subsidizing the market structure. To keep pace with real 
            market needs , the group participates in retail meets organized by 
            FICCI – CARE, Ministry of Handicraft (Dillihaat) and local fairs.  
            In fact, the products have even travelled abroad to 
            Atlanta for the 
            retail meet organized by CARE. 
            The next step is to 
            ensure a  stable source of orders, where associations like FICCI and 
            CII play a major role.  Each federation has more than 100 companies 
            on their list, some of them fortune 500 companies and MNCs.  A tie 
            up for products such as office files, carry bags, diaries, greeting 
            cards and folders even for 10 companies would be sufficient to 
            sustain the group for years to come. 
            It becomes evident 
            through such Initiatives, where the products are linked to corporate 
            needs, (wealth creators of a nation) can bridge the income disparity 
            between the urban and the poor and can provide a long term source of 
            livelihoods. We at Development Alternatives would like to thank 
            FICCI CARE for supporting such an initiative and look forward to 
            similar partnerships between industry and NGOs towards the creation 
            of sustainable livelihoods for the poor.   q 
              
              
                
                  | 
                  
                  
                  Networks Test E- Workshop on “Guidelines for Effective Ecologically Engineered Wastewater Solutions”
 
                  
                  February 10- 21, 2003 |  
                  | 
                  
                  The International Ecological Engineering 
                  Society (IEES) is launching “Net-Works” as a new Internet gate 
                  providing easy access to information on sustainable 
                  environmental technology. Target groups of “Net-works” are 
                  practioners, decision makers, NGOs and Universities in 
                  developing as well as industrial countries. It will facilitate 
                  dissemination of knowledge in Ecological engineering, 
                  provision of referring E-courses and E-workshops and the 
                  development of a worldwide “constant exchange” process. 
                  
                  As a “Net-Works” start-up event, a first 
                  e-workshop is being organized. In this e-workshop, 
                  participants will analyze the case studies of selected 
                  ecologically engineered projects. A referring set of 
                  guidelines for analysis of case studies on ecological 
                  engineering will be developed. The outcome of the workshop 
                  will be made available within the ‘resources’ area of the 
                  “Net-works” web environment. 
                  
                  Registration: January 27 to February 8, 2003 
                  
                  All activities (including registration, etc.) 
                  will take place on the Internet.  The test workshop is free of 
                  cost 
                  
                  for more information and to register, please 
                  visit    http://www.iees.ch/networks.html 
                  
                  The broad layout of the workshop is as follows 
                  : 
                    
                      
                        | l | Week 1:the workshop participants 
                        should get acquainted with the case studies. In this, 
                        different groups will be formed for E-chat sessions. The 
                        chat discussions will be guided by the respective 
                        authors of the case studies (who will, of course, be 
                        on-line). The chats will be summarised by one/ two 
                        participants and presented to the larger group of all 
                        participants. |  
                        | l | Week 2: This is most important 
                        when the workshop participants get to compare the case 
                        studies and draw conclusions. As a result, a referring 
                        set of guidelines for analysis of case studies will be 
                        developed. |  
                        | 
                        
                        Suggested Prerequisites : |  
                        | l | A personal interest in Ecological 
                        Engineering and the use of e-learning methods for its 
                        advancement. |  
                        | l | An interest to become a guinea pig member 
                        of the Networks environment |  
                        | l | A willingness to deal with the (hopefully 
                        small) inconveniences of a first test workshop |  
                        | l | Willingness to fill out an evaluation 
                        form after the test workshop |  |  
            
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