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Looking for festive decor ideas? Dress up your home with these beautiful handmade products, and support a cause! NGO products in India to choose from:
Punarnawa Crafts is an organization that promotes crafts from rural Odisha and supports the local artisan community. They believe in “Think Global Act Local” and have adopted 5 villages which are becoming craft clusters.
They have a wide range of home and festive decor products using appliqué work, basketry and dokra. One of my favourites was this appliqué-work bed sheet. To see and buy more of their products you can reach out to them via their Facebook page or website.
Wellpaper (“Women’s Empowerment through Local Livelihood”) was initiated in 2005 as a tsunami relief effort.
Their products are custom-made, durable and affordable, and are handmade by women from the villages around Auroville. All products are made of waste magazines or recycled newspaper and eco-friendly glue, varnish and colours and hence when you buy their products you are supporting an environmentally-aware project. They follow a “no machine philosophy” in their units, – using scissors and needles instead.
I love their baskets which come in all sizes and shapes. They also have some lovely Christmas decor products. You can buy their products online.
Shraddha Charitable Trust is a Mumbai-based NGO that focuses on rehabilitation of young adults with autism and cognitive challenges.
The organization started off in 1998, in a small garage owned by the parents of an autistic adult. Today they work with about 45 young men and women.
Their eco-friendly leaf plates and bowls are very popular. The bowls and plates are leak proof, bio-degradable and microwavable. I love their floating tea-light holders and the Zen Garden.
You can check out their products on their website or Facebook page and place orders with them via email.
Looking for some unique products? Check out Happy Hands Foundation, a Delhi-based NGO working on reviving traditional arts thus empowering rural men and women to live with dignity. Happy Hands Foundation covers 25 clusters and villages across 12 states. Their products showcase traditional Indian art forms such as Sujini, Dhokra, Cheriyal, Jadu Patua, Bidri, Madhubani, Lacquer, Sikki Grass, Coir and Bamboo work.
I love their latest product – lamps made out of bottle gourd. Made by artist Jagat Ram from Chattisgarh, each lamp has a unique design and comes with a bulb holder.
You can buy their products via their e-store which can also be accessed through the “Shop Online” tab on their Facebook page.
Spastics Society of Karnataka has been doing a fabulous job since 1982, maximising potential of children with special needs.
The students at SSK make various eco-friendly products in jute, textile and paper. These paintings, called Happy Art, would be a lovely addition to your home. Priced between Rs 300 to Rs 1000, they are available at the centre in Indiranagar, Bangalore. Requirements can be posted through their website, by email or telephone. The art unit’s visiting hours are 10am – 3.30 pm Monday to Friday; Saturday 10 am to 12.30pm; Second Saturday is a holiday.
Diya Foundation is a Bangalore-based NGO that provides training and employment to differently-abled individuals in paper mache and paper products, candle making, chocolate making, computer data entry, screen printing and gardening skills.
Diya has a range of festive home decor and gift products using burlap and cotton – a line of wine bags, runners, cushion covers, stockings and goody bags. They also have bowls and bins made from recycled newspaper and finished in copper and gold. There is festive chocolate packing – boxes, bags and baskets to hold Christmas chocolates. They also have fairy lights in festive colours, table lamps and festive lanterns. To help you wrap your gifts, they have wrapping paper with Christmas motifs screen-printed in-house and gift bags.
Their products can be picked up in Bangalore from their centre in Kalyannagar, Asmara at Kalyannagar or Kitsch Dii in Indiranagar. The products are all priced below Rs.350.
How about getting a fresh set of soft furnishings for your home?
Take a look at Indha Crafts, which was started by Literacy India, a Gurgaon-based NGO. At Indha, women receive vocational training in sewing, tailoring, block printing, vermi-compost, leaf plate making and making recycled, paper products.
They make a range of home decor products such as bed covers, curtains, cushion covers, masks, jewellery boxes, wall hangings, table covers, runners, mats, wine bottle covers and yoga mats.
All big things start small and Indian Yards is a perfect example. Sunita Suhas started Indian Yards to spread the love of handmade through quilts. She is a self-taught quilter who wanted to teach and pass on the skill to other women. She plans to start a free training unit in Mysore so that these women can work from home to become financially independent and sustain their households.
She makes quilts and bed spreads using old T-shirts, old baby clothes, patchwork quilts and curtains too.
You can buy her quilts via AmazonIndia.com, Etsy.com (for international orders) and her own website.
Have a lovely time decorating your home! Do share with us your experience in spreading joy by buying products from these and other similar organisations.
*Photo credits: (Used under the Creative Commons Attribution License.)
Bedsheet: Punarnawa Crafts
Basket: Wellpaper
Zen Garden: Shraddha Charitable Trust
Bottle gourd lamp: Happy Hands Foundation
Paintings: Spastics Society of Karnataka
Burlap bags: Diya Foundation
Table runner: Indha Crafts
Quilting: Indian Yards
Simran Dhaliwal is an engineer, a wannabe traveler and a newbie runner. She has worked
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