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ASHA HANDICRAFTS ASSOCIATION IS A NOT-FOR-PROFIT AND ENVIRONMENT
CONSCIOUS ORGANISATION, WHOSE MISSION IS TO PROMOTE THE SOCIAL
AND ECONOMIC WELFARE OF ITS ARTISANS AND PRODUCER GROUPS IN
INDIA, BY PROVIDING MARKETING FACILITIES FOR THEIR HANDICRAFTS
THROUGH FAIR TRADE PRACTICES.
Product selection has also been governed by the source of manufacture.
As a not-for-profit making body, Asha Handicrafts endeavours
to ensure that the benefits of handicraft production reach the
craftspeople themselves.
Asha represents only:
- Actual craft producing families, such as those who make
the wooden items, carpets and paper mache from the North
and leather items from the East.
- Government approved cooperatives, who have received Government
financial and marketing assistance. Under this group are
the numerous hand-weaving and basket-making centres of South
and Central India
- Institutional work, which was established during the last
century by overseas missionary organisations. This covers
the embroidery, lace and novelty items.
While the groups under 1 and 2 receive substantial assistance
from local Government subsidised handicraft development boards,
the groups under 3 were solely dependent on their own efforts
to sell through their overseas principals. This resulted,
during the past two decades, in a very marked drop in sales
volume. Thus it was mainly to provide marketing assistance
to these centres that Asha Handicrafts was established.
Asha Handicrafts not only provided a ready market for
these centres, but has also assisted them by furnishing technical
advice and, in some cases, raising financial help for expansion
and diversification.
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