Lingappan, 47, is native from a small village in the outskirts of Puducherry, where he still lives with his family. He learned wood work and carving while he was 14, was employed until 1994 in a workshop, before starting its own project. He now employs an assistant and has developed a lovely collection of incense holders, candle holders, made of a local variety of oak wood and serpentine stone. Lingappan's collection is exhibited in our wood catalogue, Ref. AGL.
According to Unicef 16 percent of children (5-14 years old) in developing countries are engaged in child labour, and 29 percent in least developed countries. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of child labour at 33 percent. The International Labour Organization (ILO) put the number of children involved in hazardous work to 115 million.
Ensuring that no child labour is involved in supply chains is one of the 10 Fair Trade Principles.
ArtisanConnect is a web portal developed by the International Trade Centre, a UNCTAD/WTO agency which enables small business export success in developing countries by providing, with partners, sustainable and inclusive trade development solutions to the private sector, trade support institutions and policymakers.
The objective of the portal is to make the craft sector benefit from trade opportunities. The portal offers sources on markets, design, techniques and projects to artisans and keeps the organizations up to date with regard to trade fairs and other related events worldwide. With its large database of organizations, it endeavors to create intra-industry linkages, especially between developed and developing countries.
At the occasion of the International Women's Day, SPEED Trust (Baladarshan's charitable organization) has been generously granted with Rs. 1,00,000 ($2,200) donation towards its training program for isolated, widowed, abandoned women from the Chennai slums by the Indian daily newspaper "The Hindu", owned by Kasturi & Sons Ltd.
A total of Rs.1 lakh raised through ‘Divas Live' organised by The Hindu on International Women's Day was presented to Speed Trust, a charitable organisation that provides employment opportunities to women.
Organised as part of ‘The Hindu World of Women', ‘Divas Live' was a performance by six vocalists – Bombay Jayashri, Srilekha Parthasarathy, Chinmayi, Swetha Mohan, Andrea Jeremiah and Tanvi Shah – specialising in different genres of the art form. ‘The Hindu World of Women' was presented by Chennai Silks, powered by Tata Nano, and co-sponsored by Univercell and Sowbhagya. The amount was presented to Speed Trust by Lakshmi Srinath, director-events, Kasturi & Sons Limited recently.
