Khadi Gramodyoga
A training and production centre, in weaving and dress-making of Khadi material, has been run at the Hosa Jeevana Daari centre since 1980. The centre is recognized by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. Rural women from nearby villages are trained and given employment. The center has trained till date 20 persons. The center has 5 looms and is providing livelihood to weavers of the region.
The focus is on production of environment friendly fabric utilizing natural dyes in addition to livelihood support and enhancement. Presently, natural dyes are produced by the trust. Janapada does not believe in selling handloom khadi cloth. It engages professional designers and brings innovative products which have good demand in national and international markets.
The Trust has already established a tailoring unit with 10 sewing machines. 6 women from Melkote are converting all the fabric woven in the center in to dress such as Kutras, formal shirt, Sal wars etc also they produced razes which is good demand. All the products are sold under the brand name 'Janapada Khadi' organic.
Janapada started using natural dyes since the past five years to produce eco-friendly cloth and fabric . The Trust also runs a khadi shop in Melkote as the weavers are unorganized and do not have marketing power. To provide a market voice to the weavers, Janapada Seva Trust has ventured into marketing and considers it as a very important area for survival of the livelihoods of the weavers. It proposes to expand its market depth and reach. Trust has developed small looms to weave fancy products using khadi material. The trust does not sell cloth but produces value added products such as woven shoulder bags, kurtas, shirts etc.
What is Khadi ? 
Khadi means handspun and handwoven cloth. In 1918 Mahatma Gandhi started his movement for Khadi as relief programme for the poor masses living in India's villages. Spinning and weaving was elevated to an ideology for self-reliance and selfgovernment. Every village shall plant and harvest its own raw-materials for yarn, every woman and man shall engage in spinning and every village shall weave whatever is needed for its own use. In the first half of this century, and in many parts even now, farmers have not enough work to earn their living through out the year. About four months they may be idle due to the rainless dry season. Spinning would thereby supply the readist occupation; it can easily be learnt. It requires practically no outlay or capital, even an improved spinning wheel can be easily and cheaply made. Gandhi saw it as the end of dependency on foreign materials (symbolizing foreign rule) and thus giving a first lesson or real independence. Raw materials at that time were entirely exported to England and then re-imported as costly finished cloth, depriving the local population of work and profits on it. Gandhi also felt that in a county where manual labor was looked down upon, it was an occupation to bring high and low, rich and poor together, to show them the dignity of hand-labor. He asked not only of those in need, but of every person to do spinning at least about one hour per day as sacrifice to his county, as duty towards the poor. He hoped for a certain bond of unity between the classes and masses by bridging the gap with a common occupation, and he saw great social value in hand-spinning. It was for economic, cultural and social reasons and not merely political that Gandhi established the Khadi Movement. In 1934-35 he expanded the idea from helping the poor individual to self-reliance of whole villages. In 1942-43 he had sessions with workers groups and village organizers to re-organize the whole programme on a bigger country-wide scale. . Thus Khadi is not mere a piece of cloth but a way of life. |
> Khadi Gramodyoga
