Jaipur Rugs Foundation (JRF) was founded in 2004 by Nand Kishore Chaudhary under the Rajasthan Public Trust Act. The overall work mandate of JRF is to reach out to remote rural areas and establish bonds with the village communities, enabling them to start weaving not just rugs but also their own lives.
Such weaving of lives is done via two intertwined vertical: ‘entrepreneurship development’ and ‘social development’. Whereas the entrepreneurship development vertical focuses on the economic well-being of the artisans and their communities through skill development and livelihood support, the social development vertical focuses on their social well-being through interventions, awareness generation and linkages. These two complement each other and facilitate the artisans to advance in their development trajectories.
The man who revolutionized traditional carpet industry in India, NK Chaudhary established JRF to enable economic prosperity among destitute communities. Starting with one vision, two looms and an extraordinary journey, he was able to connect people around the world with the timeless craftsmanship of Indian artisans. Through the coming years, he developed a network of more than 40,000 artisans spread across five states, who today work with dignity. Built on the bedrocks of love and compassion, JRF’s work is to engage communities to develop their creative capacities and sustain them as a part of an entire movement of empowerment.
Why it matters?
Most of the artisans JRF work with are women – the invisible segment of the rural population. JRF enables economic independence to women working at home and help them assert their rights.
Addressing the global need and opportunity – JRF empowers artisans to escape the precincts of poverty and hunger by creating sustainable market-based solutions for the sub-altern.
Over 10 million craftspeople form part of India’s living heritage, practicing unmatched hand skills. Traditional crafts symbolize the cultural identity of human civilization, while each handmade product has an identity of its own. Mechanized mass production is endangering the timeless traditional craft forms by killing human creativity. Consequently, artisanal communities are forced to abandon ancient family traditions as they are deemed ‘worthless’.
JRF’s goal is to bring positive sustainable change in lives of artisanal communities, to provide a life of happiness and dignity.
As it does not demand massive infrastructure, the practice of rug-weaving seeks to keep women away from forced labor and migration by empowering them with economic independence through sustainable livelihoods at their doorsteps.
JRF is currently working in five Indian states namely Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. It is supported by a core team of development professionals and field functionaries. In addition, interns and volunteers from premier academic institutions are constantly involved in spearheading various activities undertaken by the foundation.