Varanasi Weavers Crisis - Update
Mon, 2007-05-21 13:58 — team
60% of the estimated 500,000 weavers in Varanasi are without any work. Many malnutrition and starvation related deaths have been reported. Many of these highly skilled weavers have changed their profession to jobs such as rickshaw pulling. The reasons are many including changing fashion trends and Chinese silk dumping and Chinese and Surat “fakes” of Varanasi silk sold in India. Several organizations are working together to solve this. The government has also taken various steps to help the weavers.
Udai has been mostly raising awareness through posters at events hosted by other organizations and also on youtube. We have hosted the video made by BBC, PVCHR (one of the orgs working in Varanasi). It has been seen by around 1500 people. We have also raised about 180 dollars from a silent auction for the weavers with help by The Art of Living Foundation, San Diego chapter. These funds we raised went for this pilot project VWT. The concept of the trust is based on the stock exchange and also on a model used earlier by French wine and Sri Lankan tea industry.
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