Desi Oon Hub

The remote Miyar valley, lying at an altitude of over 3000 metres, is a part of the Lahaul Range in Himachal. It sits between the Pir Panjal and the Zanskar range and winter snow often cuts electricity and phones for months at a time. The women of Miyar are tough and adept at responding to challenges. Miyar Mufflers is a young initiative that engages with the Mahila Mandal of Miyar, and encourages community entrepreneurship and traditional crafts. All Miyar Mufflers are handspun and handknitted with wool from the knitter’s sheep.

Based in North Karnataka, Mitan promotes craft-based, sustainable livelihood projects for women who had previously depended on seasonal wage-based labour and migration to cities for work. The women have revived and mastered many of North Karnataka's craft traditions and techniques such as indigo dyeing of the Neelgars, folk stitch and joinery of the Nadafs, felting, spinning and the Kambal weaving techniques of the sheep herding communities.

Kullvi Whims stands for Women of Himachal Self-help group, from Kullu Valley. The 'Whims' in the name also refers to the joy women take in weaving or knitting each piece by adding little touches to the motifs and patterns! . The women are all traditional artisans, who had learnt their craft practices of spinning, weaving, knitting and crocheting from their family members and have mostly practised their crafts for themselves; weaving Pattus and blankets or knitting sweaters, mojiris and socks.

Earthen Tunes was founded by a band of three young designers. They started their journey to produce affordable footwear for farmers. To solve this, the trio explored 18 different natural materials and made 70 different shoe prototypes using those materials. Wool topped their tests, primarily due to thermoregulation, easy availability,  and the ease of production. A lot of experimentation has led to their range of YAAR shoes, sold mainly to practising farmers. These rough and tough shoes are perfect for use in rural India and can last for over a year with the roughest of use. They can be used without socks in all seasons, all terrain, and in and out of the field. Since urban folk like ourselves, did not qualify to buy these shoes, Earthen Tunes has developed a range of premium shoes for an urban eco friendly lifestyle. If you wish to buy them, visit their webpage at www.earthentunes.in or call on +91 93813 43506 for more details. You can also email contatus@earthentunes.in

Shepherds of Himalayas (SoH) is an independent project that aims to explore and document the traditional as well as ecological knowledge of shepherding and other pastoralist communities in Indian Himalayas as they spend nomadic / semi-nomadic existence in search of better pasture for their herd. Know more about SOH by clicking here.

Avani, nestled in the Kumaon region of  Uttarakhand, is a community built on the principles of sustainability and local empowerment. Fusing traditional techniques with sustainable technologies, Avani's talented farmers and artisans produce exquisite, one-of-a-kind textiles and lifestyle products using 100% natural materials, including plant-derived dyes, sustainably harvested indigo, and locally-produced silk and wool.

Urmul is one of the best known civil society initiatives in India. For twenty- eight years, Urmul has been innovating approaches for inducing community driven development by devising and sustaining programmes in the harsh and inhospitable Thar desert. In its initial days, Urmul worked with sheep herders - on animal health, wool grading, and spinning -till the focus briefly shifted to cotton and is now back to working with wool.

Aana Jaana is an initiative by Jen Hoover who works directly with herders, weavers, and knitters to develop new markets for their wool and woollen products. Jen is a hobby spinner-knitter-weaver turned interdisciplinary researcher with a B.A. in Anthropology and M.S. in Textiles. Learn more about Aana Jaana by clicking on this link.

Khamir, a platform for the crafts, heritage and cultural ecology of the Kachchh region of Gujarat, is well known for its focus on the ecology of craft material, such as dryland Kala cotton. Khamir has been working to revive the Patanwadi sheep wool and wool artisans of Kachchh to revive the local wool economy for five years now.

Peoli is a design studio based in Almora located at the southern edge of the Kumaon Hills of the Himalayan Range in Uttarakhand.. It is an initiative that works with the Harsil wool of Almora to develop a range of handmade products using wool, cotton, hemp, nettle and other natural fibres and natural dyes.

Located in the Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh, The Color Caravan is a creative social venture based in the village Naggar. The venture works primarily with women artisans using skills like hand spinning & plying, natural dyeing, handknitting, crocheting, weaving and sewing to create slow fashion & lifestyle products.

Rangsutra is a company owned by a community of over two thousand artisans across rural India. They act as a bridge between rural artisans and global consumers while developing sustainable livelihoods and retaining India’s rich craft heritage.

Cotton Rack is a 9 year old woman led, institutionally funded business from India which focuses on minimal eco-friendly and ethical practices to create minimal designs in hand spun natural textiles. Cotton Rack, also, actively works in social impact sector towards sustainable development in fashion and textiles in collaboration with various governmental and non-governmental institutions. Know more about Cotton Rack by clicking here.

Himmotthan was born out of a desire of Sir Ratan Tata Trust, the oldest private philanthropic organisation in the country, to work intensively in the Central Himalayan region. Himmotthan engages with Himalayan communities on issues of livelihood, including farming and crafts. Recently Himmotthan has started working with the indigenous wool of the Rudraprayag district.

It's all folk aspire to support culture preservation, awareness and continuation of dying crafts in North East India by diversifying indigenous crafts. It came into being as an archival project that soon expanded its scope to conservation and climate action. Currently, the initiative is primarily based in Arunachal and focuses on trying to develop livelihoods based on Yak Hair, a raw material that does not find many uses anymore.

Looms of Ladakh is a women’s cooperative which aims to bring together unemployed women artisans from remote villages of Ladakh. The women are trained by designers to produce trend setting knitted and woven products. The raw materials are sourced locally from nomads and frontier livestock rearing communities of Ladakh.

MAGRA is a brand owned by Samakhya, which is envisioned to position the ‘golden fibres’ of the Thar (indigenous sheep and camel fibres) on the world stage as sustainable alternatives for various industries. This is an effort to bring local communities and like-minded people, with similar value systems and ideas, to address the environmental, health and livelihood challenges faced by different sections of the world.

Useless. Usefull. Usewaste.

We live in a fast-moving world and need better solutions to tackle waste problems. With an increasing population, our need for agriculture and other resources has also increased. This further leads to agro-waste and post-consumption waste like packaging. Go Do Good is a research-led design lab developing and manufacturing waste-to-value materials & sustainable packaging. They innovate with nature to make home compostable packaging solutions (often from waste resources!).

Anchoring the Desi Oon Initiative, CfP has been working to develop and disseminate a nuanced understanding of sheep pastoralism as well as the wool economy; and work with craft, natural building and educational organisations to explore ways to develop livelihoods based on indigenous wool.