TGLife
The Saligao Institute is trying to craft a local market that promotes items which are exclusively promoted locally. Called the ‘Made in Saligao’ mini-market, the first edition of the same is to be launched on November 12 at the Saligao Institute. The sarpanch of Saligao is to inaugurate the market at 5 pm.
Fun and fashionable items will be on sale, as well as Christmas decorations in cute wrappings. Necklaces and earrings, decorative soaps, gifts, fancy bracelets and anklets, food stuff, snacks, cakes and other items are being planned to be locally produced, at a micro scale. Also on the menu will be pickles, unpolished rice, masalas, Goan sweets and snacks.
This idea has been largely spearheaded by Clarice Vaz and team. Vaz, a qualified nurse, herself also has taken up to painting earlier, and is one of the few artists who can paint with a syringe.
In the meantime, a group of villagers with the skills has self-organised and got going to produce and market their products. Vaz has been visiting homes, and highlighting her unexpected ‘finds’ via the social media. She says she plans to make this an off-line-cum-online activity, where the market has a real-world presence, but will also be promoted via the social media.
In one of her visits, she reached the home of Poornima Sakhalkar of Muddavaddi, a hamlet in the village, who does terracotta work. Vaz explained on Facebook how Sakhalkar did it, and added, “She has been at her craft for 20 years and has even exhibited her creations in Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Harayana, Kolkatta, Hyderabad and many places under a SHG (self-help group) Saras.
Ambrose Vaz, a retired bank officer who was unwell for many months, found his fresh purpose in life after post-surgery knew complications. Vaz visited him and photographed his craft - center pieces, coasters, candle stands and even curtains - al out of cotton rope.
The story of Connie Godinho from Tabra Vaddo was even more unusual. She worked in Kuwait and lived with her husband and daughter there. While on a visit to Goa in 2011, she met with a freak accident on her birthday while going walking for morning Mass. She was hit by the swinging open door of a speeding bus in the Saligao tinto. Thrown up in the air, she fell on her back. Left with broken ribs, a punctured lung, damaged back bone and lots of bruises, she fought for her life, survived and thrived with family support.
Connie altered her lifestyle, set new goals and began to give tutions and started doing handicraft which have become popular among her family and friends. Once she got going, she was hooked, and today one can see different coloured balls of thread and hooking needles as her constant companions, besides her Alsatian dog. With her mind occupied keeping count on the number of stitches so as to follow a pattern, she uses a slip knot creating rows and rows of stitches from L to R for hours together. She is gearing up for Christmas, crocheting small decorative figures for hanging on the Christmas tree. Currently, her husband works in Oman and daughter is graduating.
Vienna Travasso e Gracias of Grande Morod, in another pocket of Saligao, creates ‘melting-in-the-mouth cakes’ and with three children has little cakes stacked, neatly labelled in trays all in a row. She lectured temporarily in a college, but unable to get a permanent job, she went to her childhood passion of baking.
Maria D’Cruz lives at the end of Saligao in a little home tucked in the fields in Grande Morod. A widow, she decided to empower herself with income made from craft she learnt by simply watching YouTube, the online video site that offers many free tutorials too.
Vaz admires, “Maria is great at making foam flowers as I have noticed and I love her shell bouquets! She also does macrame work. She has been giving workshops around Goa and that’s something I didn’t know.” Arguing such initiatives could empower village people and thus make them more productive, Vaz feels that such events could help support the very own local people in the villages.
Saligao Institute is currently holding its Ladies’ Week, under the presidentship of architect Dean D’Cruz. To go beyond traditional gender stereotypes and roles, the 90-year-old institution is this year offer sessions involving film, photographs and photography, Yoga, indoor and traditional games, talks on careers for women, poetry, a Saligao quiz, a Mando performance, fashion and a barbecue (the last, crafted by the village menfolk).
