ABOUT

Our most recent venture in collaboration with the initiative by MHRD and state government of Uttar Pradesh under the 'One District One Product Scheme'. The project aims at empowering the indigenious Moonj based handicraft products which have been facing existential challenge over the years.

Before diving into the project, we would love to introduce to you what this project is about. What moonj is? And why is Moonj basketry a pride for our Prayagraj. Moonj is the outer layer of a type of grass called ‘sarpat.’ This layer is peeled off and knotted as it is easy to store and dry. These knots are locally known as 'balla'. Kaasa grass is dried and wrapped with moonj grass by rolling around kaasa. The motifs of basketry are then formed by dying and stitching with great expertise. The final product baskets, have a touch of our culture. Moonj basketry comprises of our Allahabad's oldest heritage and with time it's awareness is decreasing. Hence to bring back this beautiful craft, we at Enactus decided to dive into this project and give this project the recognition it deserves.

Motivation
The Naini area of Allahabad has been recognised widely for its Moonj Craft. But with time it has been losing its charm and today it is significantly far from the time of its glory. The market offers variety of products made from the moonj like basket(daliya in Hindi), coaster stand, bags, decorative items and more. Eco-friendly moonj products have the potential to do well in national as well as the international markets.

Goal
The team aspires to plunge into the various aspects related to supply chain, marketing, promotion and technological R&D assistance to tackle the various challenges which have been holding back this art to achieve the glory it deserves.

From our first field visit, we had the following insights:-

• They are technologically deficient which means they are not at all prone to e-commerce world.
• Kids and men aren't supporting women. The work solely is being done by women. Which leads to dependency on a middle man, who then takes away a lot of their profit. This also leads to a lack of interest in younger generation which in turn leads to degradation of the whole art.
• Cost is too low. The monthly income of 1500 INR is too low in regards to the time and efforts they put in.
• Production rate is slow. Since they don't prefer machines and do knitting by hand it takes a lot of time.

LOOKING FORWARD TO

• The manual process is time consuming. At times, it takes weeks to design a moonj product. We are trying methods, which can be used in needle movement for knotting the spirals so that the products are masterly crafted. To create a space in the market, we need to increase production without affecting employment.
• We will use the cultural heritage of Prayagraj. The Magh Mela and other Fairs, will act as a direct source of sale.
• Making them technologically aware so that they can be aware of the vast internet world. And make use of e-commerce websites.
• We are looking forward to do advertisements and help this artform regain it's lost recognition.

We are fully fledged to work on it again and receiving this beautiful heritage of Prayagraj.