Meet the Artisans
Learn about the people behind the products carried by Four Corners.
Artisans from MESH
Maximizing Employment to Support the Handicapped (MESH) works with communities to create opportunities for artisans to produce and market alternative trade handwork. The program was initially started to support people affected by leprosy living in colonies.
Ashish Chand is a wizard with bamboo. He lives in a Kenjakuda in West Bengal in northern India. His is a village of bell metal workers with a sprinkling of bamboo workers in between. The sounds are of hammering and beating and polishing, but he hears none of them as he is hearing and speech impaired. In no way does his disability reduce his place in society, and he has responded marvellously to The Leprosy Mission EEAD project staff offer of design and business input from MESH if he is interested. With their input he has joined up with a couple of other disabled artisans to fill orders for MESH’s customers in Canada.
This picture was taken during a Design and Product Development Workshop conducted by MESH in June 2006 where he learned some new designs and ways of working.
Artisans from Bethany Leprosy Colony
Bethany Leprosy Colony is in Guntur district in central India. The Bethany Colony Leprosy Association, supported by MESH, is made up of nearly 150 artisans who work in the Rehabilitation Unit of the colony hospital. Money raised from the sale of handcrafts supports the work of the hospital, including the provision of free medical care, education for children and rehabilitation.
Glory grew up and has lived in Bethany Leprosy Colony her whole life. While her parents were affected by leprosy, Glory lives leprosy-free. However, she has still endured the stigma associated with the disease. At high school everyone knew who the “leprosy colony kids” were. Glory works in Bethany’s rehabilitation unit, weaving tape that is stitched into beautiful bags.
Macherla lives and works in Bethany Leprosy Colony. He contracted leprosy as a young man before multi-drug therapy was available. His treatment was inadequate, leaving him with shortened, bent fingers. To raise money for food and shelter for his family, Macherla depended on begging. Now, he has stopped begging and has been working for more than 10 years in Bethany Rehabilitation Unit. Macherla has learned how to weave cotton cloth for bags and table linen. He now realizes the security of employment with the promise of retirement savings and a pension.
Kannakadurga is from a family of caste weavers. Her father learned how
to weave as a boy beside his father until he developed leprosy and moved to Bethany Leprosy Colony. When he saw that the colony was good and provided him with work as the weaving master in the rehab unit he moved his wife and children there too. Kannakadurga grew up in the colony, joined the other women working in the weaving unit and gradually increased her skills and knowledge until she was made leader of one of the weaving groups. In 2006 she came to MESH for a special training in making swatches and was to become MESH’s link to Bethany for product development, a task now shared with other women. Her husband is the son of people affected by leprosy but together they have managed to make sure their children study well and she expects that as a result of her income from weaving she will see her children settle in some professional course. Kannakadurga has woven many of the bags that CLWR has bought over the years and those sales have contributed to the education of her children.
Artisans from Blue Mango Workshop
Blue Mango Workshop in Tamil Nadu, India, is one of the newset colonies that works with MESH. The program gives priority to women who have AIDS, widows, persons living with physical disabilities and survivors of domestic abuse. Sixty women are currently employed, receiving transportation, training, subsidized meals, medical care and a pension.
K. Suseela comes from a small village near Blue Mango Workshop in India. She has no parents as her mother died of asthma and her father left home. So Suseela, who is not married, lives with an elder sister and her husband and two children. That sister and her husband work most of the year on the cardamom and coffee plantations where they earn 85 Rps per day. They do not live at home but come about once a month. Suseela looks after their children.
Suseela studied up to the 10th standard, failed the final exam and left school—that was about 15 years ago. For some time she worked for a nearby NGO doing village survey work, identifying other disabled people. She found the work very hard and was glad to hear about Blue Mango from a neighbour and started working there about four years ago.
She had a little experience with handicrafts as she had made some wire baskets at home for a while. Now she works in the beading unit where she earns about 1200 Rps per month. She feels somewhat economically secure since starting at the workshop. She knows that her sister will allow her to live with her for as long as possible but still feels glad to save a little towards her own future and use some money for her personal needs.
What she likes best about the work at Blue Mango is getting a regular salary, being able to share her problems with other women and forgetting her difficulties in the company of the other women for some time.
Artisans from the Helen Keller Woodcarving Group
The Helen Keller Woodcarving Group is based in Kalakruchi in Tamil Nadu. Support from MESH and the Leprosy Mission Economic Empowerment of Artisans with Disabilities (EEAD) has helped this group of 10 artisans to hone their technique and produce a range of marketable products.
Almost everyone in Ayappan's village is a woodcarver, but most do job work for middle men, getting paid for the labour but not reaping the benefits of direct sales.
The Leprosy Mission EEAD Project field staff identified a number of disabled people in the community and encouraged them to come together and form a production group that can make products and sell them directly. Ayappan and the other members tell us that if they were making pictures for a middle man and being paid only labour rates they would earn half of what they have been able to earn as members of a group marketing directly.
Artisans spend about 50% of their time on MESH work, but as each still gets labour work in other large workshops they are not dependent on MESH.
Artisans from HEED Handicrafts
HEED Handicrafts, based in Bangladesh, is a collective of artisan communities. HEED stands for Health, Education and Economic Development. Artisans work mainly with jute, leather, clay and some recycled glass.
Nurul Islam Nuru is in his fourth year working for HEED Handicrafts. At 33 years of age, he supervises 12 other artisans and earns a respectable wage, about $155 per month. His daughter now studies in a good school. However, it wasn’t always like this for Nurul.
The eldest of eight children, he was acutely aware of his parents’ struggle to provide for the family. His father earned a small income performing manual labour. This simply wasn’t enough money to send the children to school on top of covering the basics like food, clothing and shelter. So Nurul stopped going to school after Grade 5.
“Many days my parents skipped their meal to provide for us,” remembers Nurul. “It was very painful for me.” As the eldest son, it fell to Nurul to assist the family. Along with his uncle, he left his village for the city of Dhaka to find work. A small leather company hired Nurul as a trainee worker, paying him room and board. He slept in the factory. After three years on the job, Nurul was earning a paltry figure, about $13 a month.
Teresa, from western Bangladesh, makes date leaf baskets. Teresa supports her mother, brother and two children with this work.
When her husband left her after seven years of marriage, Teresa first went to live with her parents. When her father passed away, however, it fell to her to support the family. She found that she could rely upon her basket-making skills from childhood, thanks to HEED Handicrafts.
Minu Begum (28) was born into a very poor family, which included her three sisters and two brothers in Bangladesh. It was very difficult for her father, a day labourer, to maintain his large family. They  often could not eat three times daily, having to skip some meals altogether. Minu had no opportunity to go to school. When she was 15 years old, her father arranged her marriage to a 60-year-old man who already had a wife and six children. Minu did not understand what was happening in her life.
After three years she gave birth to a son. Minu felt happiness for the first time in her life and smiled to see her newborn baby. Butthis happiness did not last long. After seven years of marriageher husband died and Minu’s life was thrown into darkness. She lost any rights she might have had as part of her husband’s family. It was at this time that Minu learned about HEED Handicrafts.
One day she came to HEED Handicrafts hoping to find a way to survive. Minu had no training or skill in crafts. However, HEED Handicrafts immediately provided work in its packing department as a day worker. At the same time HEED Handicrafts provided training for her in its garments section. After completing this training Minu started working for HEED Handicrafts as an artisan.
Shortly after, Minu married a young man who works as day labourer in construction and gave birth to a second son in her new family.
Now, Minu works regularly as an artisan in the house production centre and is able to bring her two and half year old son along with her. She sends her older son to school and is able to handle all his expenses by herself. Also, her income plays a significant role in meeting her family’s expenses. Minu has found dignity in this ability to contribute to her family.
Minu shares that her dreams became reality through HEED Handicrafts’ activities.
Now Minu is happy with her sons and husband, and looks forward to a bright future for both her sons through education. Minu is very grateful to God for providing her the opportunity to work with HEED Handicrafts.
