Late in the 1900s, when the severe drought hit Gujarat many things came to extinction including our years old artwork. The artisans left their native places and migrated to the outskirts of the village where they had to fight for their living. Many adopted different other ways of earning which lead to endangering the beautiful artwork.

After years of struggle, artisans decided to retain their traditional artwork but did not know the way to reach their destination as the earthquake had taken away their resources, money, people, supporters. At that time, Chandaben Shroff went there to assist on a famine relief project that brought to her notice the excellence at the local art embroidery that the rural women had acquired.

Chandaben came up with an innovative idea to get these rural women employed by using their talent. There she established “Shrujan”, which is a non-profit organization. They spend the money they earn on their new project.

Shrujan began as a small project that later spread across 100 villages, joining hands with more than 3500 women artisans where each tribal group and community exhibit expertise in a different form of embroidery, and lexicon of stitches and motifs. Their first exhibition was in Mumbai where they did well and invested the profit in building the organization.

Shrujan helps artisans personally and financially. They provide materials to the artisans free of cost and pay directly to the artisans after the work has been completed. They later started their training center where they used to train several other women and develop entrepreneurial skills in the women.

Taking a step forward for the growth of these artisans, Shrujan has joined hands with Megastores. This collaboration will result in a broader market for the artisans where people will directly come to know the essence of handicrafts.