At the Service of and Supported by Our Communities

15 May 2020: At The Colours of Nature the last few weeks have seen our income dwindling. Having been fully focused on being able to continue to pay our staff, we are happy to share that we received a grant to produce masks.
With the arrival of the coronavirus on the global stage, the situation that we found ourselves in, almost from one day to the next, was that we could no longer produce nor ship any products to our clients. This combined with the Indian government’s stated obligation of ours to continue paying the salaries of some 70 employees, even though they are not allowed to work onsite, served up some food for thought.
But rather than worry, we looked around for creative solutions. And we found the Nest COVID-19 Relief Grant. Well, they actually reached out to us, via their newsletter. Nest (www.buildanest.org) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to help artisans in different ways. Aiming to preserve important cultural traditions, they focus on all handworkers and on the well-being of women in particular. We learned of the existence of Nest some years ago and became members.
Jesus met the Nest founder when they were both Levi Strauss & Co. Collaborative fellows and travelled to San Francisco as part of the program. As Nest members, The Colours of Nature receive the periodical Nest newsletter and the Auroville unit was delighted to read about a grant to produce masks. Nest’s idea was to use their network of artisan members, both to be of use to society and these crafts-based organisations. And as we were looking to be of service both to our staff and to others living in our vicinity, we got into talks.
After some brainstorming and communications back-and-forth we agreed that The Colours of Nature would supply surgical type masks to Auroville Village Action Group (AVAG). Nest, through a grant, would pay for the production of the masks and the masks would be given for free to the villages nestled around our facilities and Auroville. As there are cases of COVID-19 active in the villages in our vicinity it made a lot of sense.
We’ll soon write again to tell you more about the project. For now, we state that we are happy to be a part of the global artisans-supporting Nest Community as well as of our local communities.
Additional Links:
https://www.levistrauss.com/2016/06/01/introducing-the-levi-strauss-co-collaboratory
https://villageaction.in