Ahmedabad Heritage Entrepreneurs #2

In continuation from Ahmedabad Heritage Entrepreneurs #1 

6. Sarkhej Roza Women’s Collective

The collective was formed in December 2013 and is the brainchild of Bhavna Ramrakhinai. The monument of Sarkhej Roza and the people around it were the inspiration for starting the organization. This organization trains the women of the Sarkhej Roza area to create souvenirs using crochet whose designs are inspired by the motifs of the monument. It is an effort to create livelihoods for the people living around the monument of Sarkhej Roza with a focus of connecting their lives to the monuments.

The exhibition was a great exposure for the members of the collective. They got the opportunity to interact with others running their ventures and see what else is going on.

In the near future the organization is looking translating their skills and designs into products and at marketing their products and taking them to a wider market. They are also looking at integrating more themes in their products and also becoming more sustainable as they don’t have funding for this.

7. National Heritage Volunteers:

Mr. Girish Gupta is the founder of National Heritage Volunteers.  It is an informal association which trains tourist guides within Ahmedabad and in the state of Gujarat and has been active for many years. Mr. Gupta was inspired to create walking tours and to reach out to the local people. He was also simultaneously inspired to create a sustainable set up for the guides and also himself.  The organization currently runs many walks in the city like the Heritage Walk of Ahmedabad, Jain Heritage Walk, Ahmedabad Craft Walk, Night Heritage Walk, A Walk in Gandhi Ashram.

He would like to formalise the organization, make it economically sustainable and also develop the capacity to cater to national and international tourists.

In the future he is looking towards expanding into App development, creation of badges, brochures, souvenirs and overall infrastructure development to sustain it.

8. Arya Sanskruti:

Arya Sankruti is run by Mithun Shah; a young and dynamic entrepreneur who has created a venture which sources organic products produced using traditional methods.

It has a wide variety of organic, natural and traditional products like grains and pulses, oils, sherbets, spices and utensils. Thought the store and its people are not limited to this. They offer support and logistics for many other traditional activities and have extensively worked on them.  For example they also promote Ayurveda and can connect you to a Vaid.

They promote organic and traditional farming done with desi seeds and traditional techniques which cause less harm to the environment and also produce better and healthier produce.

It also displayed 1100 varieties of rice at the exhibition, these were traditionally grown in the country and are slowly being lost.

The exhibition went very well for them and they were very happy with the support AHVL provided them with. They felt that it was a good awareness building exercise and a lot of people have gained from it and whose thoughts have been influenced by it. This exhibition was a great start.

9. Radio Nazariya:

Radio Nazariya is a radio which plans to transmit and 108.7.  It is a community radio which was conceived to deal with the urban question through dialogue and informal sharing. They plan to have audio programmes on the social issues of the city.

They plan to have 5 different segments: Yuva Front- which will look at issues of the youth; Bahengiri: which will deal with women’s issues; Shahernama- which will look at the city and its stories and include its heritage, Kalarav- which will look at children’s programmes and issues and Abhivyakti- this will focus on music and culture and will have shows on topics like folk music, poets.

The exhibition was the first time they got the opportunity to showcase their work and was a feat opportunity for them. They have 15 people working for them and have developed a lot of content they hope to start transmitting very soon

10. Creative Yatra:

CreativeYatra.com is the brainchild of Mihir Gajrawala, who is also the Chief Content Curator. It is an organization which has been founded to initiate, identify and promote arts’ events that encourage creativity in the community.  The enterprise aims to influence the culture consumption of the youth by way of creative interventions in the field of digital media.

CreativeYatra is a digital media space which is trying to bring all the affairs from the world of culture and creativity on one platform. The site churns out interesting content for its readers and is gaining great following from netizens of city and state.

Mr. Ravin Sanghvi, Head Coach of Venture Studio said that the objective of the exhibition was to provide a platform for all the heritage based ventures of AHVL and the 7 participatory institutes of Ahmedabad Cultural Heritage Cluster (ACHC) together.  The exhibition turned out very well. With the central location provided by Ahmedabad University, the inauguration by the City’s Mayor it was good start.  It is a good example of Public Private Partnership with the involvement of local government, non-profits, academic institutes and ventures.

The event generated a lot of interest in the public at large based on the publicity done in various mediums by the different stakeholders. The exhibitors themselves work in diverse areas and it was interesting to see their work. the 1^st exhibition and its response was an encouraging milestone for the visitors.

We hope that AHVL keeps up the good work and we see more such events in the city.

Photographs : Ravi Panchal