Maya Organic

The Spirit Of Ants  [17-SEP-07]

The first thing Solomon Jayaprakash says at Maya Organic's six-day-old showroom is: "The cause we serve is fine, but we don't want people to buy our products because we do that. We want them to buy them because of their exceptional quality. Our focus is on building a brand. Sympathy is unsustainable in the long run."

It's this line of thinking that distinguishes people like Solomon from other entrepreneurs who work in social sectors. 'Social entrepreneurs', they may be called, but they keep a clear focus on both the causes they serve, and the competition they need to fight in the marketplace.

The area where Maya Organic is located itself exemplifies this philosophy—it stands rubbing shoulders with multinational IT firms and behemoth shopping malls on Bangalore's upmarket Banerghatta Road.

Maya Organic is a 'livelihood development initiative' that aims to create wealth and build capacities for artisans in the informal sector. It promotes worker-owned enterprises in three main areas—lacware toys, wooden furniture and natural fibre garments—and partners with design schools in Switzerland, France and Germany. What began as an NGO working in the domain of child labour grew into a company that now sells goods under the brand name MO. "We don't look for grants, but investments. We tell our artisans that you are not competing with the neighbouring village but with China," says Solomon. Maya Organic has both professional and social investors who are guaranteed a flat 8 per cent annual return. One of the firm's recent initiatives is Labournet, a unique database of its skilled construction workers. With details of 30,000-odd labourers, it's used to maintain the demand-supply equilibrium. They plan to scale the database up to one lakh by 2009.

The desire to integrate the entrepreneurial heart and head is the new awakening across India. An indicator is the number of applications received by the Ashoka, one of the earliest organizations to fund and nurture social entrepreneurship. Says Ashoka's Pritha Sen: "It has shot up in recent years. And the term 'social entrepreneurship' is being interpreted in multiple ways." Most people who turn out to be successful social entrepreneurs have no history of having run businesses. Their driving force is their passion and a more-than-alive conscience. Besides this, a big, pragmatic idea that would sustain the vagaries of the marketplace is mandatory.

Take, for instance, the case of P. Mukundan, who was 60 years old in 2002 and had innovated on a stove-burner. He thought it was 30 per cent more efficient, and wanted somebody to invest in his idea. He found a partner in Vineet Rai and a micro-venture capital fund called Aavishkaar—they invested Rs 8 lakh for a 49 per cent stake. The company struggled for a couple of years, but today has a million-dollar annual turnover. It is now poised at an interesting breakthrough—it may soon introduce pure plant oil stoves in the market.

Fuzzy Logic  [25-SEP-07]

You’re a bundle of contradictions. You want traditional motifs, combined with modern minimalism. You seek elegant sophistication in an earthy ambience. You want furnishings that appeal to your inner aesthete, while satisfying your social consciousness. You could find yourself at Maya Organic. Or lose yourself. For, in its spacious new retail outlet, the social sector NGO showcases its best design products under the brand name MO. Sleek slumber beds, low-seating sofa sets, CD racks, dressers, storage cabinets and cupboards — all crafted in solid wood with an impeccable finish.

The store also retails traditional Chanapatna lacquer toys and apparel in hand-woven, natural fibres. Our Trendy shopaholic’s favourite, however, was the rich, hand-embroidered range of home furnishings and silk quilts. Throw one around yourself and revel in the sense of quiet luxury. The feel-good factor is heightened by the knowledge that all of MO’s environmentally-sustainable products are sourced from informal sector micro-entrepreneurs, and profits are redistributed to the worker-owned enterprises.

Being socially conscious was never so stylish.

Maya Organic. 15 Bannerghatta Road, JP Nagar III Phase, Bangalore 560 078 (Opp. Shoppers’ Stop). Ph: 26580511, 26580512. Furnishings start at Rs 130 for cushion covers, Rs 3600 for silk duvets. Furniture starts at Rs 3000 for wooden side-tables.

Chinese Lead Scare Helps Revive Channapatna Toys  [16-NOV-07]

Channapatna, Karnataka: The controversy over lead in ­China-made toys couldn’t have come at a better time for the toymakers of Channapatna, a town 60km south-east of Bangalore. Over two centuries ago, Tipu Sultan, then king of Mysore and its surrounding areas, invited wooden toymakers from Persia to teach the art to local artisans. The toys were initially made from rosewood, ivory and sandalwood. Today, the use of ivory has been banned, and rosewood and sandalwood have become expensive. Toymakers at Channapatna use cedar, pine, teak, or just about any wood they can lay their hands on. Things were not looking good for the 3,000 surviving toymakers of Channapatna. Their simple wood toys had lost out to imported Chinese toys, mostly mechanical or electrical. Raw materials were not easily available, and there was no organized effort to market the toys. Many toymakers had even abandoned the vocation and become workers in the booming construction industry. Maya Organic, a Bangalore-based non-governmental organization that looks at livelihood issues related to Channapatna’s toymakers, has been working with the toymakers of Channapatna in an effort to improve the quality of their produce as well as find a market for it ­overseas.

Then the China controversy erupted. According to B.K. Srinivas, the person in charge of research, quality and a few other functions at Maya Organic, there has been a spike in demand over the past few months because customers, both in the local and export markets, are turning away from China-made toys.Maya Organic says it will export around Rs80 lakh worth of Channapatna toys this year, mainly to the UK and other parts of Europe. It plans to enter the US market later this year.Channapatna’s toys are made from wood that is not chemically treated, and the toymakers largely use vegetable dyes to paint them. The toymakers have also learnt to look beyond toys—at home accessories and decorative items.

The revival of interest in wood toys has helped people such as 33-year-old Rukamma, a mother of three. Rukamma, who uses only one name, owns a lathe with which she makes small toys. She earns between Rs80 and Rs150 a day by selling her produce to small retail units in Channapatna.The revival of demand has encouraged Krishna Singh, a 38-year-old electronics graduate, to come back and take up his father’s profession—toymaking. “My father set up this manufacturing retail unit 45 years ago. We have now developed clients in Delhi and Mumbai, who have an eye for children’s toys and handicraft items.” Singh’s company has even started branding its products (under the name Zanzibar) and exporting them.

Play station:

1. Stocks of raw wood for meant for making toys.
2. Bangalore-based NGO Maya Organic encourages village women to make toys at Channapatna.
3. B.K. Srinivas take cares of R&D, quality control and despatch at the NGO’s Channapatna unit.
4. All the parts of the toys undergo quality check before assembly and packaging.
5. Packaged toys being loaded for their retail destinations.

New Twist In India Old Toy Story  [17-JAN-08]

Neelsandra Prasad, 35, is busy carving out a future for himself and his family in his hometown, Channapatna, nearly 60km (38 miles) from Bangalore in southern India. A toymaker by tradition, Mr Prasad learnt the fine art of making wooden toys when he was a child from his father. In fact, generations of the Prasad family have survived by selling nothing but toys of this kind.

A few years ago, Mr Prasad moved to Bangalore in search of a better life. However, after slogging away from dawn to dusk in a silk factory there for more than nine years, he is back in his hometown. He says he moved to the city hoping for a better life. But things were hard there as well. It was becoming difficult for him to support his family. So when the toy business started picking up again, he decided to move back to his village. The move seems to have paid off. Now he has regular orders and a steady source of income.

Booming demand

Mr Prasad is not the only one, though. There are many others like him in his village who had moved to the city in search of greener pastures - and who are now back home at Channapatna as the toy town gets rediscovered. In fact, business has never looked better for these toymakers.

In order to meet the growing demand, most of them are now setting up self-help groups and working together to increase their production. And thanks to new technology, they are now making more toys than ever before. Traditionally sold only within India, their hand-made items are now finding their way into the international market because of newer designs, improved quality and better marketing facilities.

And after the recent scares over the safety of toys from China, demand for these Indian products is picking up. One of the main reasons for the growing popularity of these toys is that they are seen as safe for children to play with. Made of wood and coloured with vegetable dyes, they contain no harmful components. That's why they are now gaining ground in foreign markets such as Europe and the US.

Scraping by

J P Solomon of Maya Organic, an NGO which introduced new designs to these artisans and which now exports their toys, says there are big opportunities big right now for a successful revival. Maya Organic buys from several toy makers and exports their handiwork to Europe and other parts of the world. If the current trend continues, Mr Solomon expects demand to double by the end of 2008.

But surprisingly, not everyone is interested in this booming market. Take 60-year-old Abdul Suban Noori, who has been making toys for the last 45 years. His son Nooruddin, 35, assists him in the business. Between the two of them, they make more than $400 a month.

But even that's not enough for this family of 10 to get by, which is why Nooruddin sees no future in toymaking and wants his children to move away from the family enterprise. He says that in the age of the computer where everyone is educated, he sees no reason to teach his children his family craft.

According to him, as time passes by, the income from the business will dwindle and his descendents will have far more problems than he does now. But while Nooruddin's children may never learn to shape the wooden blocks, kids from around the world are now waking up to the joys of these simple Indian toys, now giving new hope to an old generation.