Founded by Rashmi Bharti and Rajnish Jain in 1997, Avani is a grassroots organisation operating in the Kumaon region of the Himalayan hills in North East India. Originally from Delhi, the couple gained experience in the social sector by working for other NGOs, and then decided to set up their own in the hilly region they had fallen in love with over the years.
Rashmi and Rajnish initially acted as the Kumaon wing of the Barefoot College in Rajasthan, who are known for training rural communities in solar lamp production as a sustainable livelihood, among other specialisms. They wanted to start something from scratch which would really help communities in the area to flourish through sustainable livelihoods, and reduce the need for rural exodus.
It took some time for the local populations to gain confidence in a pair of outsiders, and it was at first difficult to find land to set up on, but Rajmi and Rajnish’s perseverance and intentions shone through, and in the end the local villagers offered to sell the current plot at Tripuradevi village to them and welcomed the new initiatives.
Alongside production of solar lamps, solar panels, pine needle gasification, rainwater harvesting, and a village school, Avani’s comprehensive textiles initiative works with spinners, weavers and natural dyers to generate income through environmentally-friendly traditional crafts.
I decided to visit Avani in the summer in order to learn more about their work and to escape the busy city of Delhi for a few days for the peace of the Himalayan hills. The five day trip turned out to be quite an adventure.
Day 1: Departure from Delhi
I travelled to Kumaon with a friend who also works in Delhi – we met at Old Delhi railway station to take the night train to Haldwani, the closest town you can get to by train before having to switch to a car or bus.
The ‘sleeper’ carriages turned out to be quite noisy on this occasion, but comfortable enough for a seven hour journey. We were excited about seeing the hilly landscapes and relieved to be going somewhere where temperatures would be a bit cooler than the Delhi summer.
Days 2 and 3: On the road
We had been advised by Rashmi Bharti to take a shared jeep from Haldwani station for an eight hour, 200km journey up the winding roads to the village of Tripuradevi, where Avani is based. At 5am, we negotiated with a few drivers and found a car with 2 front seats available for only 250 rupees each. After an hour and a half, we set off to pick up the 8 other passengers from different points in the town, and then continued up the hills.
Due to the heavy monsoon rain and even landslides, we ended up having to break journey in a beautiful, quiet town at 2000m altitude called Almora, after eight hours instead of four. Rashmi had recommended a great, affordable hotel with mountain views, so we were quite happy to be stationary for the night.
In the morning we were greeted by clearer skies. I called Rashmi who informed me that drivers were only getting through to Avani on a longer route via a town called Bageshwar. Getting to Tripuradevi proved trickier than we had thought, as there weren’t enough passengers in the shared jeeps and we ended up changing vehicles 3 times, stopping for an impromptu lunch by a stunning river in Bageshwar and eventually reaching a village 12km from our destination. Fortunately, Avani came to the rescue and sent us their own car to enable us to make the last short leg of the journey!
After two and a half days of travel, we arrived at Avani’s headquarters and were most happy to be shown our beautiful guest room with en suite bathroom, fantastic views and handmade soft furnishings.
Day 4, Morning: Hike to Sukna village weaving centre
Due to our hair raising adventure on the road, we only had one full day to visit the organisation, but were pleasantly surprised that a tour to one of the weaving centres in a village called Sukna a few miles away had been organised for us and some other visitors.
We set off by car, and then walked down a rather steep hill for a good while (I kept thinking about the tough the walk back up!) The landscapes were beautiful – layers of green hills, areas of forest, springs and streams trickling down, and every now and then a few houses with goats, buffalo, cows, cats and dogs.
The local people were incredibly welcoming – encouraging us to take pictures, inviting us in for tea and homemade biscuits, and telling us their stories. When we arrived at Sukna we sat inside the textiles store room and had tea, and were able to ask lots of questions to the local staff.
Avani supplies the Sukna centre with raw materials – Tibetan sheep wool, Australian merino wool and local silk, which are distributed to 50 families in the area who spin yarn using drop spindles in their spare time. They also have some spinning wheels, including a solar powered one, but the people we met said they preferred the drop spindle for now.
90% of the spinning we were told is done by women alongside their agricultural and household activities, but some men do spin from time to time and many know how to. The skill in most cases been passed on from one generation to the next, but Avani also offer training for someone who wants to learn to spin from scratch.
The villagers used to spin in the past for their own use, and for a few other clients in India, but since 2003, Avani has been running the local weaving centre so local people benefit from working on all of the processing stages beyond spinning as well.
After the yarns are dyed, they are brought to Sukna village weaving centre, where 12 local women work full-time. There are 30 employees in total including the administrative department. The centre was first opened in 2003 in a rented building, and the current premises were built in 2007 on land donated by the villagers.
Some of the women weavers already knew how to weave, and others have learned in the centre. The weaving room is lit using solar energy – like all Avani buildings – and provides a cool, pleasant atmosphere for work. The weavers are paid per piece – for example, a large silk/wool blend shawl might take half a day to complete and payment is calculated based on the local minimum wage. The women told me they were happy to have this job as the money they earn covers their daily needs. They all come from the local villages, a maximum of 2km away.
After visiting the weaving centre, we continued to walk down the hill on narrow paths, and past numerous buffaloes, to visit some silk-spinning households. Avani have introduced silk cultivation to the area and have convinced women to spin silk as well as the usual wool. Silk is grown twice a year in April/May and in September/October, in people’s homes. The silkworm eggs come from a government laboratory where they have been carefully tested, as wild ones may have disease. The worms cover themselves in fibres to make a cocoon, and after a week the moth emerges. After the silkworm moth has hatched, the cocoons are boiled in ash water for 30 minutes and then the silk is taken out to be spun. As an estimate, you need 100g silk yarn for one scarf, which means 105-110g of cocoons to take into account any wastage.
“Avani are creating secure livelihood opportunities for some villagers, but continue to develop initiatives to protect hill communities. There is plenty more to be done as 60% of men are still leaving the area to work in cities due to lack of opportunity”
It takes about 4 days full-time to spin this amount, but most people only spin a few hours a day when they find the time, or in front of the TV as one woman explained.
As we walked back up the hill – a little red in the face as it was quite steep! – I felt so glad to have had the opportunity to visit this flourishing, well-functioning craft project and to have been invited to witness such a peaceful, traditional lifestyle. Avani are creating secure livelihood opportunities for some of the villagers but they continue to develop more and more initiatives to try to protect the hill communities. There is plenty more to be done as at present 60% of men are still leaving the area to work in cities due to lack of income at home.
We went back to Tripuradevi for lunch in the communal kitchen – sharing tables with a variety of staff members, Indian interns and international volunteers.
Day 4, Afternoon: Tour of the Tripuradevi main site and natural dyeing centre
In the afternoon, Rajnish gave us a tour of the Tripuradevi premises. We saw solar lamp construction workshops, biogas production from pine needles, rainwater harvesting, vegetable gardens, the small school, and solar panels manufacturing. In the textiles section, we were shown the natural dye plant garden, natural dye workshop, a tailoring centre and textiles store room and shop.
When the wool and silk yarns are ready, they are taken back up the hill and down the road to Avani’s main premises in Tripuradevi to be dyed. After 10 years of dyeing, Avani have an impressive range of natural dye colours made from local plants and a team of people working on perfecting the colour shades. They even produce a range natural paint pigments for sale as well as fabric dyes.
Instead of simply employing people to strip the forests through collecting the right leaves, Avani have begun trials in their gardens of growing their own dye plants through women’s self-help groups, including indigo which has been until now sourced from south India, and initial results have been promising.
A visit to the natural dye centre is quite exciting – you first spot the reams of yarn in different colours hanging on washing lines between the trees, then containers on the grass outside with different coloured liquids in. Inside there is a store room with containers of dried plants ready to use, some bubbling cauldrons of colour, and various basins being checked for the right temperature and pH. Avani would like to acquire a machine to control the temperature and pH in order to really perfect their techniques as the project grows in scale. The organisation even has a large machine for extracting dye pigments from plants but they have not yet put it to use as they want to perfect their stability of colours first.
The textiles production and sales is run by Kumaon EarthCraft self reliant cooperative, and Avani as the founding NGO works on product development, marketing and capacity building. Production is Craftmark certified, which is a label for traditional crafts that also guarantees a certain level of fair trading such as no child labour and minimum wage.
The current range includes shawls, scarves, knitted toys, sweaters, and classic dresses, jackets and tops. Retail prices range from 400 to 2500 rupees per item, which seems quite affordable considering the long process and strict ethics involved. Some design input comes from students from Indian design schools who train local tailors.
Avani sell their products through various retailers in India including the popular Fabindia, large Indian craft fairs such as Dastkar, and in September 2010 they participated in the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris. They also have a small number of distributors in Europe and the US and want to find more – keeping in mind their ideal balance of 60% domestic and 40% export sales. This October, they are participating in the SOURCE Expo in London.
Rashmi explained to me that Avani does not want to follow ‘market demand’ when developing products, but rather to produce timeless, high quality traditional crafts. She believes the market will begin to demand what you offer them if it is a good enough product, so is not interested in following temporary fashions.
Day 5: Back to Delhi
Thankfully when we woke up in the morning of our departure day it was not raining heavily, so the roads were clear. Avani had kindly contacted one of their known jeep drivers to pick us up at 9am and we enjoyed a far less stressful eight hour journey down the hills than on our way up.
Arriving back in Haldwani, where we would take the train to Delhi, was quite a shock to the system after a few days in the peaceful hills – as we were overcome by loud cars, traffic to dodge, and crowds of rushing people. At that moment I could completely understand why Rashmi and Rajnish decided to stay in Kumaon long-term rather than return to the chaos of Delhi!
How you can work with Avani:
I asked Rashmi what kind of collaborations Avani’s textile wing is looking for and she enthusiastically listed the following:
- Clients for their natural yarns and fabrics – in order to change how designers view raw materials and have a wider impact within the fashion industry. There is room for upscaling production capacity to meet demand.
- Sales opportunities in particular for May, June, July and August as this period is a slump in the Indian market (it’s generally too hot locally to think of buying such textiles!)
- Assistance in standardisation of processes – at the moment, for example, they are not able to give work to the spinners all year round as there would be surplus yarn.
- Retailers who wish to stock Avani yarns, fabrics, knitting/crochet kits and finished garments/toys.
- Training partnerships – Avani can offer training for others around the world in natural dye, spinning or weaving or could benefit from learning from others.
- Further volunteers to help with design, pattern cutting and training local staff in textiles finishing.
For more detailed information on Avani’s work, their annual reports are available at www.avani-kumaon.org. Founders Rashmi Bharti and Rajnish Jain can be contacted via info@avani-kumaon.org, and you can meet Avani in person at the SOURCE Expo 2011.
Avani, P O Tripuradevi, via Berinag, District Pithoragarh, PIN 262531, Uttarakhand, India. Avani will be exhibiting at the SOURCE Expo 2011, 17th-18th October, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London. Visit the SOURCE Expo website to buy your tickets and register as a visitor and find out more.
