User:Sourav KSCH/sandbox 2

Introduction

Kolkata Society for Cultural Heritage (KSCH) is a social enterprise functioning at the grass root level for developmental changes of rural and urban areas of India working through their traditional cultural facets. We believe culture is a powerful human tool for the identity of mankind. Moreover to nurture the diversity of myriad human communities all forming a large society itself makes India proud of her heritage in unity with diversity. And it is this factor that has given us the impetus to nurture, explore and preserve the richness of our cultural heritage. And very likely, hence, our focus areas are rural and tribal communities, the epitome of traditional cultural assets and their inter-cultural blends. We are reaching out to the people by the link of traditional cultural and environmental affinity between different communities of eastern India bridging the rural and urban gap. ‘Culture Evokes Development’ is our key project for the development of permanent socio economical changes.

What we do

o Preserve heritage and rural folk art, exploring the folk life and creating Social Cultural sections and sub-sections based on folk art, folk music and folk dance giving shape to, Special Cultural Zones (SCZ).

1) Doing Workshop and creating local leaders and champions like ‘Train The Trainers’ programs.

2) Organizing festivals to give platform for the young budding folk talents who can take forward the folk-music and cultural legacy of India for successive generations.

3) Creating projects for Exchange of Cultural programs between different cultural communities of the region to enrich the rural folklore by encouraging new forms of artistic expressions and providing fresh approaches that can expand their horizons thus infusing the ‘traditional forms of media with new media features’.

4) To create a worldwide network of Artist-in-Residency (AIR) program so that there is an exchange of Indian folk artists with global folk performers.

o Enriching the Regional Sustainable Tourism and Cultural Heritage through the nomenclature of - Culture Evokes Development (CED) so that a new local tourist spot can gradually develops based on the seasonal exhibition of either folk artifacts or folk cultural fairs.

o Development of rural communication, Education and cultural affair; we are catalyzing the rural cultural movement by using music, dance, drama, craft and other traditional artifacts - Culture For Sustenance (CFS).

o Working with different health related issues like HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Dengue and other transmissible disease. We are organizing awareness programs through culture, developing awareness about Arsenic, Sanitation, Water, Food and Nutrition and developing infrastructure for household and community sanitation.

o Empowerment of Rural Women by using folk art in textiles, pot paintings and other artifacts. By providing the market for them and their products we can generate their livelihood. We are also concentrating to create new Self Help Groups and develop existing Self Help Groups as well. By doing this we can explore new rural industry.

o We are doing Developmental Research on Indian Cultural Heritage and Socio Economic Development of the communities representing the cultural characteristics. We are also focusing to develop archival value of these traditional cultures pertaining to the communities by forming the repository of important facts, figures, lifestyle, folklore, art, database of traditional cultural communities, their customs, practices, rituals etc.

Development Using Culture

We believe culture is the strongest tool to develop our society. Through cultural performances and activities people not only can generate their livelihood but also they can communicate with different sociological issues as well.

Cultural Events:

Our goals are to enhance and to publicize Indian folk-music culture to the international community in order to overcome the limits of all language barriers. We are doing folk music and folk dance events to create the platforms for the new comers. This kind of work encourages the cultural entrepreneurs to lead the society by using their own culture and heritage. Our projects are intending to stimulate their creativity giving a right place to their talent.

Sustainable Tourism:

The sustainable cultural tourism will promote the remote villages of Bengal towards the world. People from outside the Bengal or India will come to know about the resources of West Bengal. These community led scientific sustainable tourism will help to create new livelihood options for rural residents. It will reduce the employment problems simultaneously. Hence, the scientific planning of sustainable tourism will save the natural resources of West Bengal.

Sanitation :

Sanitation, Water and hygiene are important components of development. If we are talking about development as a whole then we avoid sanitation of any country or state or location. So we are also consentrating to develop the sanitation in rural areas. We are experize in this filed with professional resources.

Empowerment of Women:

Culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns so we are spreading awareness using culture as a tool. We are doing campaigns, workshops in rural areas for creating the awareness about women rights, stop early marriages, stop violence against women. We are creating new self help groups in rural areas based on folk art. We are trying to build an alternative economic support structure for women in rural areas – by Women Sustenance System with Folk Art (WSSFA) project.

Education:

We are working with rural, urban and pro poor community. Today the huge concern of this community is education. We are initially focusing on child education to secure the future of this society.

Enriching Life With Culture:

We are working to enrich the rural and tribal life by using the cultural heritage. Cultural performances and cultural tourism will secure the income for the local people. After securing their earnings through culture they can enrich their lifestyle naturally in terms of health, sanitation, and education. So by elevating culture we can create entire holistic development of the society.