Visit to the Tailoring and Silk Screening Centers
Interaction with an end user or fabricator is key to the success of any project. Creating an understanding of capacities, talents, opportunities, culture and history are among a few of the areas needed for consideration. Here, we spent two mornings visiting the tailoring and silk screening center who is run by the Communities Rising, Inc part-time art teacher, Sagayaraj, This is also a learning center where local village women learn how to sew, embroider and weave. By the time they have completed their training they have learned valuable skills to make additional income to support their families. These are some of the people who may work on the container for ATOM. They are a great resource for this project. Through ATOM we hope to not just generate a new income stream, but also introduce new ways of thinking about the use of materials and their uses for their creative expansion of products that they offer to the market place.
Working with the Students
Through the Field Visits we had many opportunities to work directly with the students of Communities Rising, Inc. This is a group of enthusiastic 4th and 5th standard children ages 9 to 11. Many of these children had never used scissors before. Many children at first wanted the Srishti facilitators to do the work for them. In very little time the children realized that the Srishti facilitators were not so much interested in the rightness of the completed work, but in the exploration of the medium. Once the children understood they took on the art making with great enthusiasm and creativity. Please click Field Visits to see more about each days activities.
End User Profiles
To get to know our end users better each student conducted end user profiles. Profiles were conducted with parents, teachers, students and tailors in an attempt to get a better understanding of how the ATOM project can better serve the Villupuram District community in Tamil Nadu.