EDII trains over 6,000 handloom weavers in modern retail

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jun 29, 2021

The Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India has announced that it has facilitated the training of over 6,000 traditional handloom weavers on how to succeed in modern retail. 

EDII’s Project Handmade in India trained handloom weavers on how to best promote their goods and sell them in the modern retail landscape, TNN reported. The project kicked off following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and trained weavers on topics including credit linkage, capacity building, market linkage, design development, social media marketing, and enterprise development with the aim of helping them reach new customers for their artisan goods and give the weavers a feeling of self-reliance.
 
EDII HMI training sessions also guided weavers through opening a Facebook, Instagram, and e-commerce portal account to enable them to begin using the platforms to sell their products. The weavers also received training on how to use WhatsApp for business purposes as well as trademark registration and QR code uses, among other topics. As the pandemic has necessitated that many trade shows remain online for the time being, HMI cluster teams are helping weavers showcase their products on online exhibitions.

The weavers are spread across six handloom clusters in Salem (Tamil Nadu), Maheshwar (Madhya Pradesh), Bhuj (Gujarat), Surendranagar (Gujarat), Kamrup (Assam), and Bargarh (Odisha). 

The training was jointly implemented by EDII and Ernst & Young with support by HSBC bank.