Our Activities

Women Empowerment

Our core purpose is to encourage economic empowerment of women artisans through handicrafts, uplift their social status and strive for their education, health and financial security.
At present, we are working with 3,000 tribal artisans, out of which 1,200 women are working on direct livelihood activities and earn around Rs. 45,000 per annum.
Adequate livelihood opportunities and favourable work conditions have helped women to stay at home instead of migrating to cities. They are using their monthly earning to invest in agriculture, get their children educated and to take care of their family’s health needs.
We have developed a beautiful range of commercially viable products using their traditional handicraft skills with design research and training support provided by our trainers/experts. We have been successful in creating a niche market for tribal handicrafts and developing a pro-tribal brand over the years.

Capacity Building

Craft is an area of work which needs continuous upgradation of skills as the designs of products keep on changing as per trend and market demands. The production processes also change, eventually requiring training inputs for the artisans.
Sahaj began its work with the traditional craft of beadwork of Dahod, and very soon realised the importance of design development and trainings to keep up the production as per the market demands. Skill Development and Skill Upgradation trainings are crucial working areas of Sahaj.
Fresh people who want to join Sahaj undergo the Skill Development training and start acquiring basic skills to work on different products. After the completion of training, they start working with Sahaj and earn based on their skills. The senior batch of artisans undergo Skill Upgradation trainings as per the requirement of new product designs, and upgrade their skills as well as income. This is a continuous process.
Some artisans start working independently as producers. We also help them grow and help them with new product designs.
We have so far trained around 3,000 artisans who are working either with Sahaj or as independent producers or have diversified to other fields of work after acquiring skills from the training and working with Sahaj.

Support Services

As a livelihood-activity-based organisation, Sahaj mainly focus on economic empowerment. But along with it, we also try to look into various socio-economic issues of the community.
We understand the importance of financial literacy and management while working with the community. Various Government social welfare schemes are made for financially weaker sections of the society.
Our Village Institution team continuously works on trainings and also providing information and help in availing the welfare schemes to our artisans.
Formation of SHGs (Self Help Groups) and their training to function independently is a task, which the team continuously addresses at the grassroots level. Many SHGs are also provided trainings on financial literacy, which help them to manage their money efficiently.
We register artisans with Development Commissioner Handicrafts, Government of India, which helps them in availing various schemes by the State and the Central Government. They are provided with the ‘Artisan Card’, issued by the department.
‘Health Card’ for Artisans, Insurance schemes by Government, opening Bank account of new artisans & SHGs, connecting them with government pension scheme and other such welfare schemes are also part of our work.
Connecting them with MFI to build toilets, to start small businesses, to purchase equipment and to avail loan from banks under schemes for artisans for starting their independent work is also part of our support services.
These various support services help artisans to be financially independent and translate their economic empowerment in to reality.

Awareness Camps

Women artisans working with Sahaj are being provided with the knowledge of health, hygiene and nutritious food along with their craft trainings.
We arrange competitions for nutritious food recipe amongst the mothers and encourage them to use locally grown ingredients. We also teach them about the nutritious value of the local food and its benefits.
With the support from RPG Foundation, Mumbai, Sahaj is providing supplementary nutrition to 700 children in Halol block of Panchmahal district for five days a week, along with follow-ups to their mothers on a weekly basis. The food is prepared by the women Self Help Groups of Dahod district, which is an additional benefit as employment. We also provide awareness to their families on nutritious food, health and hygiene.

MUKTANGAN

With continuous dialogues with women, we feel to expand our activities beyond economic empowerment. We realised that children, which are an important part of a community, needed attention.
Formal education systems are functional and parents are aware of its importance. But their need is life skills, which are not available to them. They have the curiosity of knowing, exploring & experimenting new things. In addition, they need a platform to express themselves. “Muktangan” is one such initiative for the rural & tribal children.
Muktangan is for improving the quality of life of rural children with various activities beyond schooling. Children from different villages come to our campus and learn about physical health, mental health, intellectual health and spiritual health.
Besides, we also train their mothers on nutritious food, health and sanitation issues. 100 children from five villages of Limkheda taluka of Dahod district receive beyond-school education and life skills throughout the year.

“Alakh no Otalo” ( અલખ નો ઓટલો ) –

A place to share life experiences, think, discuss and to connect with different people. This forum aims to unfold life stories of people from different field and to learn from these human libraries. This is a monthly platform for our friends, Sahaj well-wishers and people connected.

VRUKSHANJALI

Every year, we at Sahaj celebrate “VRUKSHANJALI”.  Our gratitude to mother earth. Friends, well-wishers, team and guests, plant tree and visit their tree whenever they come back to ‘SwapnaShrusthi’  Sahaj campus during the year. This is a small efforts by Sahaj contribute in preserving the local and rare spices of trees. At present we have more than trees of 52 spices at our campus.