Cloth bag project coming up!

Travelling in (or living in) India, you'll see polythene bags on the ground absolutely everywhere. Even more important - burning plastic waste is a huge contributer to toxic air pollution in the country. Earlier this year, New Dehli announced a ban on singel-use plastic bags. Yesterday, in Khajuraho, cars with speakers drove around informing the population of a similar ban in the municipality. This made us very happy! This is great for the enivronment - but it also fits well with one of the new projects we are looking into.Vio in Friends of Khajuraho has invited us to participate in their upcoming "cloth bag project". We love this idea and couldn't say no to this! It still needs work and more planning, but this is something we want to help implement!

The idea is quite simple; to use old fabric/clothes to make shopping bags to replace plastic. The execution of this plan is not so simple though. Vio explaines all this (as she sees it at the moment) in Friends in Khajurahos blogg, but here is our short version (the "we" in this section is for the most part Vio and Friends in Khajuraho/other locals).

• We will train 2-3 local underprivileged women in sewing shopping bags - to start with. We'll need a local woman with the right skills to lead the project (Vio has someone in mind). The project leader has to be payed from the start. We could also use a volunteer, at least in the first fase of the project (contact us or Vio if you are looking for a different India-experience and think this might be something for you)
• The project leader, volunteer and the women involved will work on designs and production techniques to make durable bags that are practical in the everyday life in an indian household.
• The women will be given donated fabric/old clothes (from local donors, from us and Emmaus-France), and the equippment they need (Emmaus will even donate sewing machines to us).
• We will help the women sell their products in the local marked and develop/widen their marked. We will of course take no commision.
• As their skills develop, we will explore other products that can be sold locally (still made from donated fabric, this also makes it possible to produce cheap products for local low-income families). Better quality products might even be sold to tourist or abroad. We'll see how this goes!

This project aimes at being an ecofriendly project that empower local women and give them a chance to make a living and not be so dependent on their husbands (if they have one). We also hope that meeting up with other women through work will make them stronger and gain confidence.

So..... Ganpati are not on site for the daily work - what can we do from here?

• Contribute financially towards paying the project leader.
• Collect good quality fabric/thread and other supplies to bring with us, send or give to people who are travelling to India and are willing to stop by Khajuraho for us.
• Supporting Vio and Friends in Khajuraho in discussing ideas, products, strategies or whatever they want our input on or help with.
• IF the project goes well and we find products we think might sell in Norway - we can sell products through our website (or a designated website for the project) and/or talk to a few selected shops and try to convince them to buy our products.

Literacy classes are going well

Here are some new photos from our literacy class. Our teacher, Ravi Soni, says things are going well, and that his cooperation with the students is good. It is important to him to have a friendly and open environment in his class, and the students are happy that his classes don't run like classes in ordinary indian schools. In Ravi's words;

"I am happy I got a chance to teach these people, and the people in my class also seem happy with me. They are very happy about the way I teach as it is different from Indian schools. I think they enjoy my class and I am happy for that. I have told them that they are fully free to think openly and ask if they have any problem in my classes because I don't want to create an Indian school atmosphere there at all".

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Two parcels have arrived in Khajuraho

Our two parcels with clothes, toys and shoes have finally arrived in Khajuraho. The boxes have taken quite a beating, but everything has arrived safely. We are looking forwards to see the clothes being distributed!

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An update on the famliy project

All is well with the family. As they have no income, we still support them with food, as well as guiding and practical support. Our goal is to help them find a way to provide for thelmselves. We have taken a few important steps towards this in the past few weeks- and there are other news as well.

The mother and some of her children on this years Mela.

One important step is to make sure the children are not illiterate. We did find a job for the oldest son, Prakash*, this winter, but had to turn it down beause he did not know how to read, and basic reading was important for the job. Ganpati Norway started literacy classes on the 24th of April 2017, and all of the children attend for now. The mother in the family initially said she wanted to join to, but in the end she is to shy to participate - which is understandable at her age. She always sits nearby though, and she might still learn something from the class. The classes are held in the family house, but there are students outside the family too. The classes are held late afternoon, 4 times a week.

Literacy class!

The oldest son, Prakash*, is learning how to drive a rickshaw from a friend (for free - and by his own initiative). We insist on him taking the literacy class as well, as he is illiterate. The oldes daugher, Roshni*, as been busy with something else for a while, but is now back in sewing class (which is in the morning it does not clash with the literacy class). One of the boys, Raju*, has been in Vio's english class until now. He has switched to Ganpati's literacy class for now since he also needs to work on reading and writing in hindi He continue learning english at a later point.

The family only pays 300rs for electricity a month (since they are poor), and they have managed this on their own til now. They have now fallen a bit behind, and we have decided to cover the electricity bill within our budget.

The toilet is finished!! Vio and Vijay informed the family about the Rural Toilet Fund Allocation. The family applied and got 12 000rs to build their toilet. This is a good example of how important Vio and Vijay from Friends in Khajuraho are to our work. Thanks to information provided by them, the family could improve their living conditions without relying on us to fund it!



The family has always been poor, and since Aryan*(the father) died in 2014 they have had no real income. They have not been able to get new household supplies - or maintain/repair the ones they got. Once a year there is a marked ("Mela") where families go to have fun and get cheap households supplies. This year the family was able to attend for the first time since Aryan's' death, and they did some much needed shopping together with Vijay. They have also gotten three new plastic chairs from us. There are still things the family needs, and things they have that are broken. One of the two fans they have is broken, and they are both to small for the house. We have helped them build an extension on the house  (the extension still needs a roof). The extension was necessary as their house was just one room for the whole family, and as their cooking area was outside (which is very impractical in the rainy season). The new walls block the air which makes the house too hot during the summer, so the family could really do with an aircooler  Their charpoy is also broken, and we still need to repair their old bike and get locks for their bike (the waterpump near their house has dired out so they need to go further to get water). We will try to solve(at least some of) these issues within the exsisting budget, involving the family in budgeting and making priorities/long term plans. This is also a useful skill for the family to learn.

For more information on our work  - visit our webpage 

The youngest boy in the family hard at work in literacy class

inside the new toilet