Heed Handicrafts

HEED Handicrafts is a job creation project established in 1977 by HEED Bangladesh, a registered NGO in Bangladesh. HEED Handicrafts is involved in various handicrafts as well as micro credit and fishery, agricultural projects, community health, family development, gender education and leprosy hospitals. The artisans, including refugees, widows, minority indigenous tribal groups and other disadvantaged people, are mostly illiterate and usually work at home as members of some 250 cooperatives.

The Kartikpur Potters
Our clay watering stakes are produced in a village called Kartikpur, about 130 km southeast of Dhaka. This village of potters has been producing household goods and kitchen items for the domestic market for many generations, but in recent decades aluminum and plasticware have replaced pottery in most Bangladeshi kitchens. As a result, the potters lost their main markets and it became difficult for the whole community to survive.

HEED Handicrafts began working with the Kartikpur community, training them to diversify their crafts to include decorative and other non-kitchen items. Uttam Paul now leads a group of potters in the village, about 70% of them women, who work with HEED to find alternative markets for their crafts. HEED also works with their western buyers to develop new product ideas for the group, and provides other assistance in the form of schooling and improvements in working conditions for the potters.

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Heed Handicrafts