October 2011

The month began with the biggest festival of Bengal- The Durga Puja.

Although the rains did try to play spoilsport, the festive spirit continued with other festivals like Lakshmi Puja and culminated in the festival of lights- Diwali and Bhai Dooj. In addition to the regular activities at SSA, the team was involved with the Sasha team in organising and managing, what was an extremely eventful month!

Post Puja get-together at Sasha

The entire Sasha team cam together to wish each other Shubho Bijoya & Dussherra for the festive season. Lunch followed the brief business session chaired by Roopa Mehta.

News from the Field

Traidcraft delegates visit Sasha

A team from Traidcraft visited Sasha in early October. The team visited the Sasha Shop. There was a brief introduction to Sasha & SSA by Roopa Mehta & Sujata Goswami . What was supposed to be a brief introduction followed by some shopping by the visitors turned out to be an engrossing discussion on Sasha, the milestones, the achievements and the impact. The discussion ranged from organisation development, strategic plan, growth and potential of Fair Trade in India. All the visitors participated with lots of questions and suggestions. The discussion was interspersed with coffee, samosas and sweets. The visitors had a great time looking at the products on display and shopping.

Traidcraft delegates at Kolaghat: A visit to Kolaghat Socio-economic Welfare Services was organized by for the visitors. Karobi Choudhuri from Sasha and Mousumi Das from SSA accompanied. The women of the producer group cordially welcomed them with roses and arranged refreshments.

The visitors asked several questions about their struggle for their economic independence and showed keen interest in their stories and about how they built their big work shed. They were happy to know that they managed to build it by their own savings. Women also shared their obstacles and how they had overcome them. The visitors had a wonderful home cooked Bengali lunch.

The visitors were pleased to know that the women have learnt the embroidery skill traditionally from their mothers or grand mothers while they picked up tailoring at Kolaghat. They were very interested in recycled old saris and bought several of them, including dresses and purses with Kantha embroidery. The children of group members and a local dance group performed classical and contemporary dances and recitation which really impressed the visitors. They also visited homes of two artisans and were delighted with the warmth and overall experience.

Sasha and Producer Group Collaboration with Citi Bank for Citi Global Community Day: Sarba Shanti Ayog and Citi have a partnership that goes a long time. When Citi invited us to collaborate for the Citi Global Community Day this year on 22nd October, we were pleased to participate along with our producer partners. On Global Community Day, Citi employees, together with their family and friends, volunteer with community people. Citi Bank, Chowringhee, Kolkata organized an interactive session on Financial Education for the some of our producer groups on this day. We organised a visit to the branch with selected artisans & group leaders from ten producer groups. The programme began with an orientation on banking process and a tour of the branch and its various departments to familiarize the producer members with the banking services. After the tour, some interactive sessions were planned with our producer groups which was based on financial education- thrift, savings, compounding of returns etc. with games and quizzes. The emphasis was on managing money within a limited resource & regular savings. In this context they interacted with the participants. The event ended with lunch. Entire programme was well organized & enjoyable to the participants. The participants were delighted to have had the opportunity of this visit to a huge Bank branch and informative interaction.

Sasha Store

Fair Trade Fortnight

We celebrated Fair Trade Fortnight starting from 8th October till 22nd October. Several events were planned as a part of the celebrations.

Celebrations began on 8th October with a signature campaign at City Centre, Salt Lake along with sale of handicrafts and live demonstration of stuffed toy hangings and candle making processes.

Discount cards were given away to the customers who were signing to support Fair Trade .We got a very good response from the customers, they appreciated our work and many people who were not aware of the Fair Trade movement thanked us for enlightening them.

The event resulted in a lot of awareness for the Fair Trade movement and customers really appreciated our products and many customers visited Sasha shop to buy more!

The management of City Centre was also impressed by our range of products and the response that we received, so they too, invited us again for pre Diwali meets !

During the Fair Trade Fortnight we also had live demonstration of kantha work at the shop where customers were shown different styles of kantha embroidery.

Magic Lamp

From 19th – 22nd of October we took part in Magic Lamp event at Forum Mall, Elgin Road. It started with a signature campaign, talking about Fair Trade to people, live demonstrations of various crafts were organized and people watched the interesting handiwork by artisans

On 22nd October we had called producer groups in the shop for an interactive session and to bring to an end to the Fair Trade fortnight celebrations.

Other Happenings

We also received the Fair Trade Delegation on the 13th of October.

In addition, Sasha took part in the Annual Helping Hands Mela at HSBC.

Celebrating Sister NGOs

18th of October was a big day for all of us.

Sasha had organized a coffee meet to celebrate the contributions of sister organizations who work with the mentally and physically challenged.

These organizations, such as Anjali, Silence and Asha Niketan are helping to provide livelihoods for the truly marginalized and often forgotten sections of our society!

We highlighted the work of these three NGOs through a special Diwali Bazaar which was also inaugurated on that day. Leaders from the organizations spoke about their long journeys and impressed upon us the need to provide a place in society and dignity for the less abled.

Ms Ratnaboli Roy of Anjali expressed the hope that Sasha and Anjali could cooperate more closely in the future to mutual advantage!

Rasa News

The big news was the launch of new Rasa products and the totally revamped and redesigned Rasa range!

Rasa was launched by designer Agnimitra Paul, well known designer and Sharbari Dutta the reputed menswear designer! Mrs. Roopa Mehta the Director of Sasha was also present.

The products in the new packaging looked spectacular, and several samples were given out for customers and well wishers to try the products.

It was a momentous occasion for all of us; five new products were added to the existing range of Rasa products.

The shop looked beautiful with the Diwali decoration of candles and diyas in variety of shapes and sizes, lots of gift items and lovely gift hampers of all ranges,

We got a very good response from the media which wanted details regarding our range of products. The print media covered the launch with pictures!

Future Events/Happenings

Look out for the Sasha and FTF-I Fair Trade Fair which starts on the 29th October at the Ice Skating Rink..Details on this will follow in our next newsletter.

Read the May 2011 Update