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EU - INDIA SHARE |
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Marketing & Logistics Trip The marketing & logistic trip for the 15 selected partner organizations of the EU India SHARE project was organized from 25 August to 4th September 2006. The trip included visit to two major market souring events, the Tendence Fair, Frankfurt and the Autumn Fair at Birmingham. Besides this two major mainstream markets were also visited. Another highlight of the trip was FTO, the Netherlands in Amsterdam and Traidcraft-UK in Newcastle.
Pilot Projects Ten pilot projects being organized by Fair Trade Forum - India under EU-India SHARE are bringing in amazing results for the Indian fair trade partners. The furtherance of confidence resulted by the project is becoming visible with time and it is expected to bring in more economic as well as social benefits in the years to come. The pilot projects are aimed at improving the capacity of the organizations in the areas of design, compliance to standards as well requirements. Ten selected among the 33 Indian partner organizations of the project are involved in prioritized actions towards improving the competency in making further foray into the fair trade as well as mainstream markets. The organizations are getting inputs from the best available expertise with the support of pilot projects under EU India SHARE. An update about the pilot projects is given below:- CSWS: Nikhil Kumar Burman, President of CSWS working from the interiors of West Bengal, says, "Now, our artisans are better equipped to ensure that the expectation of the fair trade partners are addressed. The projects reduces the partners' responsibility as well, since the artisans are becoming familiar with the requirement of EU market. Most of our important partners belongs to EU." CSWS has already organized two workshops under EU India SHARE pilot projects to explore knowledge upgradation, quality enhancement, market expansion towards making their position stronger. MKS: Madhya Kalikata Shilpangan (MKS), a Kolkata based partner organisation of the project could get experts from NIFT towards exploring newer markets as well as product innovation for the traditional Murshidabad silk. "As an organisation working with the grassroots, participation in the EU project gives us access to the best expertise available. Such a thing was unthinkable for organizations like us earlier" says Mithu Dham, Secretary of MKS. Silence: Silence, a Kolkata based organization is involved in developing contemporary designs of candles with the help of a professional designer from EU. As part of the project, samples have been sent to the expert and the quality issues to be focused during the designing of the new samples have also been chalked out. A candle designer from Silence will visit The Netherlands to get product development training from the expert designer in the month of August. Aspects like quality related EU standards and design would be covered in the training through individual practical sessions. Bhopal Rehabilitation: Bhopal Rehabilitation, Bhopal is developing leather-silk combination products in competitive designs under the pilot project. Collaborative efforts with MKS, another pilot project holder is also taken up as part of the project. A market study and SWOT analysis were also done to make the design and development programme more market friendly. Tara: A workshop was organised as part of Tara's pilot project on "Product Quality and Packing." The objective of the workshop was making the artisans and the logistics personal more aware about the strong need for maintaining the quality and packing specifications sent by buyers and expected high standards as per the EU regulations. Twenty-five participants attended the four days workshop. The first two days were devoted for awareness sessions and the remaining days were spent to impart practical training to artisans and the checking/ packing/ logistics staff. During the workshop, some of the general issues related to quality and packing were analysed and their impacts were informed about. Some of the serious issues were presented before the participants, which made the producers very much aware about the strong need to give more attention to over all quality and packing. Sasha: A technical help line for craft persons/ groups is being built up as part of the pilot project being implemented by Sasha. Under the project, specific issues of individual craft producers related to quality, designing, technical adoption, environmental sustainability, sourcing of raw materials, marketing channels, events etc. will be addressed on a time bound manner. IFFAD: Market research and market planning to explore further markets are the core activities of the pilot project being implemented by IFFAD. Inputs from EU experts were already collected for the project and the product development and marketing personnel were given training. Trends, styles and pricing are the areas, which is being attended by the project. The training being received under EU India SHARE is also supplemented by a follow up training programme with the other partner organizations and business development service providers committed to community development. Asha: Asha's pilot project aims at market mainstreaming and specifically aim to work on perfect bets for mainstream market. Through the activities under the project Asha aims to build up relations with commercial buyers for selected products. A market study will be done to identify potential commercial buyers in EU countries. OBF: OBF aims to develop a marketing and sales strategy to identify and approach potential buyers. Special emphasis is given to make the pricing competitive. Sending updated information of products to potential buyers will be given special attention. A new range of fashion bags is also being developed as part of the project. EMA: The project is aimed at developing adequate systems of quality management for six product lines from procurements of raw materials to shipment. A checklist for quality copntrol and management of resource materials has been prepared as part of the project. A system for quality control will also be prepared as part of the project. Besides this a list of attributes was also developed which includes required specifications regarding colour, size, quality of finish etc. The EU-India SHARE project is supported by European Union. |
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