Most of you would be already aware of our association with Tata Capital’s Do Right initiative where we are supporting the #HalfStories phase of the campaign.
To the uninitiated, Tata Capital’s Do Right initiative is a pan-India initiative encouraging people to build a better future both by inspiring people to ‘do right’ and by providing them the platform to ‘do right’.
#HalfStories - The Journey of Doing Right, which is the second phase of the Do Right initiative by Tata Capital, will see the Do Righter Pankaj Trivedi travel and identify everyday people and their stories of courage, perseverance and determination.
Moving on from our last story on how social media raised funds to teach photography to deaf students, our Do Righter visited Raghurajpur, a heritage arts & crafts village near Puri, Odisha… where art runs in the veins of every villager.
The Artists of Raghurajpur
The village of Raghurajpur is famous for artists who make marvellous articrafts which are sold across the world. A single artwork takes 5 to 15 days and at times, even months.
Their artwork is sold across the world for thousands and lakhs, but only middlemen pocket all the hefty profits. Shouldn’t these artists deserve more than what they are earning currently? They need to move away from middlemen and get directly in touch with prospective buyers in order to get more benefit for their craftsmanship.
Their skill deserves so much more and Tata Capital #HalfStories is aiming to work towards their benefit
Watch Their Story
Help Them Circumvent The Middlemen
To help them achieve maximum benefit for the kind of work they do, Tata Capital is looking to raise Rs. 45,000 purely via social media because they believe in the medium’s potential to bring change into people’s lives.
This money will be dedicated towards building a dedicated web portal where they can showcase their art, promote it and sell without any intervention from middlemen. The website will showcase:
- Since Raghurajpur boasts of a rich artistic heritage, the website will have information about the village
- Profiles of all the artists
- These profiles will have all the info about the artists and a gallery of their artworks with full resolution images
- The website will help them sell their artwork directly to the customers, thus doing away with the need for middlemen.
And Social Samosa has already pledged its contribution towards helping these artists and believes that social media can go beyond armchair activism and bring real change.
But what about you? We know our readers are a bunch of kind souls and we are sure you’d do your bit to add value to the lives of these artists as well.
How Can You Help
Contribute: The amount of Rs 45,000 will help these artists come up with a web portal that brings them closer to their customers. If you can spare any amount of money from your wallet (no matter how big or small), you are more than welcome to do so by clicking here.
Spread the word: Do what you do best: Tweet/Share/Pin or even poke. Nudge your friends/following to go through their life story.
In all this we wonder, do these artists know that thousands of people are watching their video on YouTube, sharing it on Facebook, Tweeting it to their followers, and we have a big grin on our face.