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Rahul Kodkani
Graduate Student Researcher, University of California
04th April, 2007
”When we first heard about the crisis faced by the Varanasi weavers, the
first reaction was that of outrage. Most of us have seen "Made in China"
copies of Indian arts and crafts available in the malls of the US. It was
only when we heard of the starvation and malnutrition related deaths in
the weaver communities, that we realized, probably for the fist time, the
perils of unchecked globalization. In our first discussion we realized
that the issue is not only about cultural heritage and intellectual
property rights, but also about basic human rights, unfair trade
practises, education, perils of caste-system, poverty, and even child
labour.
A very small portion of the Indian and other communities in the US are
aware about this issue. Udai has mainly been spreading awareness of this
issue. We have collaborated with CRT, CCI, CCWB, and PVCHR. We helped
PVCHR spread awareness about the situation by hosting their video on
youtube.com - an online video hosting website that has millions of
visitors every day. The video has reached over a thousand people. We also
did a small fundraiser with The Art of Living Foundation for the Varanasi
Weavers Trust that PVCHR has started. In several events and gatherings,
we have also raised awareness about the issue with posters and fliers.
We hope to do an exhibition at the San Diego Museum in the future on
Varanasi Silks. With help from other organizations and traders, we also
hope to collaborate with online Indian marriage portals such as shadi.com
used by millions to meet their future spouses. The goal is not only to
spread awareness through their websites but also to provide a way for the
website users to purchase original Varanasi silks, by providing a list of
approved shops in various cities.
We have a lot of ideas. All of them rely on collaborating with key
organizations and individuals like you. We hope that we can collaborate
with you and hope to help in any way we can.”
About Udai
Udai is a 2 year old organization started by a few graduate
students at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) with a mission to
promote awareness of social issues and contribute to their alleviation. Currently based in UCSD and University of Waterloo, Canada Udai has
about 80 members, most of whom are students pursuing post graduate degrees
in various fields.
Udai has four focus areas: cultural heritage, education, health,
and technology. They have worked with various organizations based in India
and the US in each of these sectors.
Specific to the area of cultural heritage Rahul Kondakani states that
”Though in the US, there is a lot of awareness of the rich musical heritage that
India has to offer the community hardly ever gets to
see the arts and crafts and the way they are made. The
Arts and Crafts sector gets ignored especially in
the smaller cities of the US. Hosting Arts and Crafts exhibitions is one
way to encourage this side of our cultural heritage and Udai hopes
to help out in this respect. Last year Udai worked with the Crafts Council
of West Bengal to host an arts/crafts exhibition and sale in San Diego
during the U.N. Charter Day celebrations, hosted by the U.N. Association
of San Diego. They were fortunate that Patachitra artist, Gurupada
Chitrakar and Kantha embroidery artist, Bina Dey of CCWB were with Udai
before they went on to participate in the renowned International Folk Art
Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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