Chanda Shroff

Founder

Founder of Shrujan

Chanda Shroff is the founder of Shrujan (1969)[1], an Indian non-profit working on arts & culture, livelihood and women & children from Bhuj.

Chanda Shroff, widely known as Chandaben, was an Indian social entrepreneur and craft revivalist who founded Shrujan, a not-for-profit trust in Kutch, Gujarat, that works with rural craftswomen to sustain and revive the region's hand embroidery traditions. She died in August 2016 at the age of 83.

She founded Shrujan in 1969 after seeing the embroidery worn by women in the drought-hit village of Dhaneti, and built it into a movement of craftswomen across Kutch. Craftspeople in the region called her Kaki.

Early life and education

Shroff was born in 1933 and lived in Mumbai. She held a teaching diploma in craft making.

Career

In 1969 Shroff travelled to Kutch to take part in drought relief work. In the village of Dhaneti she noticed the hand embroidery on the clothing of the village women and concluded that the skill could give them a regular and dignified income. She persuaded a first group of about thirty women in Dhaneti to embroider pieces for sale, and founded Shrujan later the same year. The name is derived from the Sanskrit for creativity.

Shrujan grew into a trust based in Bhuj working with thousands of embroiderers across more than a hundred villages of Kutch, covering a range of the region's distinct embroidery styles. The organisation combines design development, production and marketing so that the women are paid for their work while the traditional stitches are documented and kept in use.

Shroff also initiated the Living and Learning Design Centre (LLDC) near Bhuj, a craft museum and resource centre intended to record and display the embroidery traditions of Kutch and to support the artisans who practise them.

Recognition

In 2006 Shroff received the Rolex Award for Enterprise, becoming the first Indian laureate of that award. Her work with Shrujan has been described by National Geographic as a model for social entrepreneurship in craft-based livelihoods.[2][3][4][5]

Shrujan

Shrujan works with craftswomen across Kutch to revitalise the region's diverse hand-embroidery traditions, combining documentation of embroidery heritage with market access and economic empowerment for craftswomen. Founder Chanda Shroff was India's first Rolex Award laureate for this work.