Project Name: Jiyo!

Project managers/designers: Asian Heritage Foundation

Web link: http://www.jiyo.net.in/

Description: Jiyo! is an initiative of the Asian Heritage Foundation, set up to “create new livelihoods in creative and cultural industries amongst skilled but economically vulnerable communities in India”, a design led initiative, intended to empower India's skilled makers, by bringing their wares to a global market, allowing them to continue with their skilled trades, rather than abandoning them for unskilled jobs with steady wages, or migrating out of their rural areas to the urban slums in search of wages. Jiyo! has three product lines active currently, covering style, home and food. with plans to expand to 9 product lines covering all the major skill sets associated with India’s creative and cultural industries. Due to the wide nature of the aims of the initiative, they have many active projects running in various regions, these include design interventions such as; reviving weaving traditions in Nalandar and Bihar, where many traditionally skilled weavers had been forced out leaving factories sitting empty, they have restarted looms renewing the weavers income streams, and Jiyo! college free education in Muzaffurpur, which enables young women to fund their education by producing Sujni embroidery, a traditional skill using stitches to patch together old garments.

Added by: Cat Arnarson