Empowerment

Readjusting the focus: Exercising agency through the Ballangbang cultural dance

In this photograph from the Missouri Historical Society archive, titled by author Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870-1942) as “As God made them… Pierre Chouteau”, it depicts 4 Bontoc Igorot (an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous Filipinos from the Cordillera region of the Philippines) boys as they dance what is most likely the Ballangbang, a cultural dance performed during mass celebrations and social gatherings.

Women mēstiri (superintendent) in indigo firms

In informal sectors, women are never considered to be put in the position for supervising. Mestiri is a tamil term to address the head workman or foreman who supervise a group of workers in informal sectors like construction, agricultural labour and production units. Generally mesthri refers to the supervisor of male gender and no title for female supervisor is found. This explains the patriarchy in work force structure of informal sector, establishing the appropriate role for men and women.

Cycling Shades of Chennai

Simi Mariya Thomas, Research Scholar, MIDS, selected a photograph from the exhibition, Ambedkar Nagar- Near Kakkan Bridge, Chennai, to write her story for the session on Reading/Writing/Re-writing/Telling/Re-telling using prompts, 20 December 2019.

Superwomen of Chennai always surprise and excite me. They design their life in a manner in which they are fully involved into some sort of activities around the clock.

The Network of Women: Weaving Freedom

A popular success story of the North-East Network (NEN) is Chizami Weaves where the NEN together with a network of 600+ local women from Chizami and the neighbouring villages of Phek district in Nagaland built ‘Chizami Weaves’  an enterprise that aimed to preserve and promote the rich textile weaving tradition of Nagaland. While empowering rural women economically, it also gave them a voice and agency to bring about positive changes in their families and communities. Gender relations within homes are changing.

Building Vocational Skills

The Saunders Art, Gallery and Museum were opened on the August 2, 2004 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Saunders Weaving and Vocational Institute. It was supported by the Small Scale Industries Department (Myanmar) and Kanasarwa College (Japan). The objectives of establishing the museum were to develop vocational school studies and small scale industries in rural area. There are three rooms: museum, demonstration room and gallery.

Weaving luntaya acheik (1): Modernising Traditional Craft Practice

The Saunders Weaving and Vocational Institute (SWVI) is situated in Yay-twin-nyi-naung ward, Lay-su quarter, Amarapura Township, Mandalay Region on the side of Mandalay-Sagaing road.

Till 1910, the local weavers used the hand throwing loom which could weave 24 inches only. When Mr. L. H. Saunders, Judicial Commissioner of Upper Burma, found that the technology of hand loom in Myanmar was old, he introduced in 1910, a fly shuttle loom used in England.

Walking the Naga Day

Walking the Naga Day on 10 January is where memory and meaning meet for the contemporary Naga . It is also the first time that conscientious Nagas decided to create this event in a public forum to awaken every Naga's idea of home and the community. 

 

It brings together  the voices, visions and many aspirations of the community as they straddle the borders of peace and conflict , of work and ethics, of construction and destruction, of harmony and violence as they go forth with the promise of a new year into a more stable future  .

 

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