BUILDING BLOCKS : A New Clinic at MAT

Photos by Samantha Davis.

It's all go at Dharmapuri. The new clinic (funded by various sources including proceeds from Mahalir Aran Trust's production unit Flowering Desert and of course VIA) is well underway with the shell of the building now complete. VIA made a visit to the site last Thursday accompanied by the projects' architect Ipe Chacko and construction manager Kumar. With the new well now fully operational and an electrical supply on its way the building is set for completion by this coming September. 

Above: MAT's Mercy Imondi and VIA's Janet Rogers discuss the clinic's progress. Below: the construction site

READY, STEADY, PRINT! Card Workshop Day 2

Photos by Samantha Davis.

Day 2 of the card workshop at the DIYA Foundation saw a new team visit from Goldman Sachs. Again the students and their enthusiastic assistants got to work, producing more potential designs for the new line of greetings cards whilst the VIA team got to work on some of the previous days designs. Sifting through the stacks of brightly coloured paintings, it was a tough decision but in the end we managed to select a few to to convert into computerised graphics for the cards. 

READY, STEADY, PRINT! Card workshop Day 1

Photos by Samantha Davis.

Last Thursday VIA got a little a messy over at the DIYA Foundation in Bangalore. Since we've had such a great response from our previous lines of digital and screen-printed greetings cards we thought it was time to come up with some new designs. Working with sometime partner DIYA we organised two days of painting, drawing, cutting, sticking, stenciling and finally printing for the DIYA students. Assisted by a team from Goldman Sachs, Bangalore, each student was given a plethora of art materials to experiment with patterns, shapes and designs that are to become our next range of VIA greetings cards.  

BUILDING IN PROGRESS: A New Clinic for Dharmapuri

Dr's Shoba and Pari Kumar speak about the new medical clinic currently being built at the

The India Jewellery Project: The Final Collections

After 5 months of hard work the final collection is here! Since September last year VIA has been working in collaboration with Just Trade and our partners, Flowering Desert, over in Dharmapouri to create a stunning new line of hand crafted jewellery. Just Trade's Grace and Lottie ventured over to India back in September to provide jewellery training to the ladies at Flowering Desert, enabling them to make some of the beautiful pieces shown below. 

To read more about the project visit Grace & Lottie's 'India Jewellery Project' blog, or to make a purchase from the collection please visit Just Trade. 

Brass Chime Earrings £6.00

Temple Beads Earrings B Price £6.00

Brass Chime Necklace -Short £11.50

Pouri Silver Necklace £50.00

The India Jewellery Project: The Final Collections - Handmade in Brass, Swarovs...: "Rebecca wearing Brass Chime Necklace in Long & Medium Brass Chime Necklace Detail Brass Chime Earrings Temple Beads Brass Bangle (Plain) ..."