Kala Raksha Vidyalaya

“Kala Raksha” means “Protecting art”. At SETU consortium, we greatly value the conservation of handmade, cultural and artistic talents.

In our experiences, we have noticed that many art forms are becoming extinct. Unfair trade practices make artisans go out of business, provide mundane work at factories that doesn’t require artistic skills, and ultimately stop the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. Thus, younger people do not inherit the artistic skills their forefathers created, since they render it useless in a “modern” world.

SETU is committed to keep art alive. Kala Raksha Vidyalaya is a school in Gujarat, India that provides vocational training in the traditional art forms to the local women. The aim is for rural people to practice and preserve the art of this region. We provide direct financial help to support this project, which nurtures many of the art forms used to create our products. Furthermore, we provide the artisans with information necessary to create more fashionable and marketable products, so they have a better chance to compete against big factories.