... and here are some of our first printed sarees

An exciting stage in our building... the brackets are up and the roof is in progress! We think it looks exceptionally pretty... your opinions welcome

We are taking small-small steps towards ownership by the producers of the production centres. In our Khammam centre our recently appointed honorary consultants Sudheer & Jyoti attended a 4 hour meeting of the spinners & pre-spinning machine operators to introduce the idea of the responsibilities of collective ownership to the 23 spinners working with that centre.

Here are two hastily taken pictures of the meeting.

Who's who: In the picture above Sudheer makes a point, Jyoti to his left.. To his right are three representatives of DCYT [another leans on the column]. In the lower picture, starting from the left, Lakshmiamma, senior spinner who has taught several friends & neighbours including Shaheen, [standing, right]. On Lakshmiamma's left is another spinner, then 2 women machine operators, 2 male operators, and the 'manager' of the pre-spinning unit.

... and another pic

Here is what the new centre looks like now. Some of the young people who joined as unskilled labour have been taught building skills, and we hope they will continue to work with us on the next centres too, either as masons, or perhaps as machine operators?

Sridevi Gottipati has made a rather dashing sari out of malkha fabrics with some trimmings!

The Kalamkari show at the malkha shop is doing well, probably better than the artist expected. Most of the artworks were mounted & displayed on bamboo hangers, which gave the malkha shop an extremely lively look. By the end of the second day about two thirds of them have been sold, and we expect good sales today too after a lovely article in today's Hindu by Sangeetha Devi Dundoo.