Bhubaneswar: As India celebrates International Women’s Day week, a homemaker from Bhubaneswar popularly known as the Green Queen of Odisha is paving the way for rural and tribal women to uplift their lives through the making of sustainable jewellery.
“Ecodarsini” is an initiative by Priyadarsini Das who makes sustainable bamboo-based jewellery. Her works include absolutely unique pieces of jewellery using bamboo, terracotta, handloom fabric, glass beads, stone beads, wooden beads of neem, tulsi, bael and karanj.
Her initiative has gone beyond the convention and shows a new path of making fashionable costume jewellery using mostly eco-friendly materials. Her objective is to create employment and livelihood opportunities for rural and tribal women through skilling them.
She has till date trained many young girls and women who are either selling their products online or through shops set up by ORMAS (Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society). A small investment of a few hundred rupees is fetching thousands of rupees in profit.
Priyadarsini uses bamboo as the base material in most of her jewellery, but depending on the demand patterns she also uses wood beads, glass beads, stone beads, and oxidized metals to offer something new. She says fashion means continuity and if you want a repeat customer, you have to offer something new.
During Raksha Bandhan last year, she had made many eco-friendly Rakhis by using wood and other materials. Few Rakhis engraved ‘Mo Bhai’ had also been received by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and other officials. The Chief Minister had appreciated Priyadarsini for her initiative.
“I do not compromise on the eco-friendly base of my jewellery, even though the collection is new. In every piece of jewellery I design, either you find bamboo or terracotta or wood or a combination of these as the base material in each piece of jewellery. To increase the aesthetic value of the product I use glass beads, stone beads and oxidized metals,” says Priyadarsini.
The most unique part of her jewellery making process is the treatment of bamboo and other wood beads using traditional methods. She uses cow dung, turmeric, and neem as insecticides and for anti-fungal treatment. Similarly, she also applies natural dyes prepared at home as colourants for her bamboo and wooden beads.
She is a role model, a homemaker who swiftly manages her familial responsibility, love and care for nature and living her passion with eco-friendly bamboo-based jewellery.
“I have seen my mother doing many arts and craft pieces using locally available materials. Earlier, homemakers used to weave sweaters, make palm leaf mats, decorative pieces, stitch mattresses using old clothes, make their own pillows and cushions, do applique and hand embroidery for wall hangings and garments. These skills are fading very fast, now people are looking for ready to use solutions available in the market. But the need of the hour is to go green and minimize our carbon footprints,” says Priyadarshini.
Women, particularly homemakers should play a vital role in recycling their used articles and even create new things for their personal consumption or for gifting. Women who have skills in making art, craft and utility products but have somehow not been able to start should explore and inspire others. Age is no bar for living your passion. You can start anytime, she adds.
Priyadarshini has never sold her products that have been occupying the space in her house as she continues her experiments on creating more and more sustainable jewellery. She plans to launch an exhibition of her products soon under the brand name “Ecodarsini”.
