A Step Towards Empowering Artisans

Subrata Pandey is crafting a new identity for Odisha handicrafts.
Through her initiative, Punarnawa Crafts, the Rourkela-based crafts product designer has been providing the much-required design intervention for traditional crafts to increase their marketability. This apart, she has been instrumental in training traditional artisans and women as artists, helping them establish small-scale industries and self help groups (SHGs) in the sector.

A graduate from the Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur, Pandey founded Punarnawa Crafts in 2011 along with her friend Shaswat Mohanty, an engineer, at the age of 21. “The idea behind starting Punarnawa was to develop the handicraft sector in a skill-based manner where the artisans do not have to depend on anything other than their own skills,” she says.

Prior to that, she did her research documentation in craft clusters at Aruvacode in Kerala; Baswa, Dausa and Jaipur in Rajasthan; Gujarat’s Kutch besides, Sundargarh, Baripada, Dhenkanal, Puri and Khurda districts of Odisha.
“After the course, I decided to return to Odisha as it has the maximum number of handicrafts that are without an organised economy. Shaswat and I then decided to start an experiment with skill and design development training for handicrafts in Rourkela and it got an overwhelming response from women. We started with 56 women on an applique project and since then, there has been no looking back,” she recalls.
So far, she has trained more than 100 artisans, a majority of them being women, in different crafts in six districts of Odisha. She markets the products that they create through B2B clientele in India and abroad.

“Purnarnawa was started with applique because the company was bootstrapped and at that stage if any craft was suitable for non-traditional artists, then it was applique and embroidery. It involved much less investment,” she says. Apart from applique, she has collaborated with the State Institute for Development of Arts & Crafts (SIDAC) to train artisans in coir, Pattachitra and palm leaf crafts.
Subrata recently opened her first design house at Rourkela where she showcases a wide range of home and festive decor products using applique work, golden grass basketry and Dokra made by the artisans at Punarnawa Crafts. The young social entrepreneur has also opened an online retail store to market the products under the label ‘Purna:Soul of Artistry’.

At present, she is focusing on training artisans in eight crafts in as many districts of Odisha. They are applique, embroidery, Dokra, coir, Sabai golden grass, palm leaf, Pattachitra and Ikat handloom. Currently, the company has four crafts clusters in Sundargarh district that are working in the fields of applique, embroidery, crochet and knit work. For her work in the unorganised handicraft sector, she was selected as a Global Shaper for Bhubaneswar by the World Economic Forum in 2014.

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