SHANTHIMALAI HANDICRAFTS DEVELOPMENT SOCIETY

 

The Shanthimalai Handicrafts Development Society was established in the year 2001 in Tiruvannamalai. It is situated on the Tiruvannamalai-Bangalore highway, close by the Ramanashram and the government arts college and opposite to the Om Sakthi temple.

The Society functions with the main objective of helping the poor village people in the surrounding areas of Tiruvannamalai. At the time of its inception, it was considered that, by providing the rural folk with proper training in traditional weaving methods and other types of native handicraft-making, it would enable them to earn their own livelihood in a respectable manner and that too, from a trade which would be beneficial to their culture as well as the environment, resulting finally in improving their social and economic standards.

After this training programme was successfully completed, a cottage industry was established in the villages and thus the trained workers were furnished with production centres and necessary raw materials which equipped them to work and produce by themselves, the different types of handicrafts and handloom woven cloth.

Functioning as the chief of the other 8 member societies, the main society renders every form of assistance in their work by providing them with all kinds of raw materials and necessary equipment, and is also instrumental in the marketing and sales of the handicrafts which they produce.

Moreover, the societies are helped in acquiring the required cottage industrial skills and other useful tools in order to enhance their productive capacity. All the handicrafts are subject to stringent quality control measures after which they are exported to foreign countries as well as distributed to other major Indian cities.

SHDS, Shanthimalai Handicraft Development Society, was registered as a society in 2001.Under the Societies Registration Act 1975. SHDS is a non-government, non-profit, non-sectarian organization fir the uplift of the marginalized people in rural areas of Tiruvannamalai for the past 3 years. SHDS has an excellent staff and field workers to implement the projects.