Dyeing yarns with nature
Anuradha Kandala is a Social Entrepreneur and her enterprise “Folkweave” works with the weavers of South Odisha. She believes that Social Entrepreneurs are evolved through processes which ultimately create space for collectives, increase their bargaining capacity and contribute to the environment at large. After her Masters in Social Work (MSW), M.Phil in Tribal Studies and Ph.D. in Social Work , with 18 years of experience in social accountability, Gender and Tribal development with government, 7 years of experience with civil society organizations from various fields, blended with entrepreneurship made her what she is at present.
Anuradha started working with Weavers Collective and Women’s Collective in South Odisha during the second wave of pandemic. Without any prior knowledge of market, marketing terms she learnt all these in the process.
Not sure whether she got all the right opportunities or not but Anuradha believes that God was kind enough to teach her to explore and she went back to the particularly vulnerable tribal group Dongria Kondhs where she had done her internship after her social work. An incident where a customer complained about chemical colors was a landmark in her life and made her think about journeying with natural dyes together with the artisans.
Folkweave has taken its first few steps to revive the natural dye heritage of south Odisha locally available resources from nature be it fruit, seed, leaves, flowers or bark. Currently she works on natural dye yarn, handloom and hand embroidery products and is focusing on enhancing the livelihoods of weaver collectives.