Hand-made Christmas cards from Mahaguthi

Monday, November 19, 2012

Hand-made Christmas cards from Mahaguthi

Hand-made Christmas card, made by Mahaguthi

It's starting to be time...every year we have a project with the kids to make Christmas cards, MANY of them. This year we'll take it easy and use partly these beauties made of the world-famous Nepalese paper.

The Cottonhut cards are designed in Finland by Nina Perkiö, and hand-made in Nepal by Mahaguthi, Craft with conscience.

Hand-made Christmas card, made by Mahaguthi

Have I told you before the story of Mahaguthi? It was established by the late Tulsi Mehar Shrestha, a Nepali Gandhian, in 1984 (pls. read the whole story here). Mahaguthi is dedicated to the betterment and upliftment of widowed and destitute women in Nepal, and Weranna's is very happy to support the organization in our moderate, but hopefully growing, way.

In 1977, Tulsi Mehar received the Nehru Award as recognition for his social service, and donated the whole amount to establish a residential type training and rehabilitation center for the betterment and upliftment of widowed and destitute women of the society. The center has living quarters, a small hospital, production workshops and facilities for children. The Ashram offers a 2 year program free of charge with training in weaving, sewing, knitting and literacy classes to destitute women as well as education for their children. Today, the center is financed by 40% of Mahaguthi's annual profit and has approximately 80 women each year in its training program.