Bun.kar Bihar

Ensures fair living wage for producers

Discloses the community being impacted

Reduces the environmental impact

Focusses on women producers

Created using handcrafted methods

Reduces/Reuses/
Recycles resources

Made out of responsible materials

Avoids use of chemicals or toxic materials

Biodegradable or environment friendly

Uses portion of proceeds to give back to the community

Bun.Kar Bihar is the retail brand of Srijani Foundation launched in October 2018. The goal was to showcase the pure hand skills of rural communities of spinners, weavers, and embroidery artisans of Bihar. The brand represents and sells cotton yarn hand-spun on Kisan Charkha, wearables & home line range of products like the Baavanbuti saris in cotton and silk, hand-spun fabrics in solids, checks & stripes, embroidered silk stoles, and woven dupattas with extra weft motifs. Their home line includes embroidered and woven cushions, hand-spun bath & hand towels, and hand-spun comforters.

Purpose

The vision is to create a self-sustaining model which bolsters support to revive, promote and sustain the traditional craft of hand-spun and handwoven weaves and embroideries in the state of Bihar. The Foundation values an honest commitment to upgrade skill sets of the rural communities of weavers and artisans to increase their efficiency at work and generate livelihoods by blending indigenous craft techniques with contemporary designs. They have been on the path of revival, sustenance, and change for the socio-economic and personal development of the rural communities of the state.

People

They have empowered rural women in Siwan district to professionally sew school uniforms for Delhi Public Schools in Patna, Pune, Coimbatore, and Ludhiana. This unit has grown from 52 women to 101 who are now inspired and empowered to work for their livelihoods. The unit has been integrated with Sarraf Enterprises for sustained livelihood opportunities. The Foundation has trained 40 rural women to weave plain handlooms in the Siwan district and this unit has grown to 70 women who are integrated with Takshila Foundation for sustained handloom orders for their livelihood.

65 weavers have been trained in the traditional Baavanbuti motifs of which 35 continue to work with the Foundation while others have returned to their native villages to work as small entrepreneurs.

Planet

Their work focuses on mainly understanding available natural resources, developing local skills, and setting –up systems that would create a sustainable livelihood for hundreds of people in their natural ecosystem. The focus has been to encourage production in an environmentally sustainable way. They hand spin cotton yarn on the Kisan Charkha that does not require any electrical or mechanical energy. Handlooms are environment-friendly and lend themselves to sustainable development. This results in a reduction of negative impacts on the environment and ecology as well as providing sustainable employment for rural India.