Soolkaama was commissioned by Exide Industries and CII in the Jhargram Tribal belt of West Bengal to develop branding and marketing collateral for their CSR efforts. We teamed up with the Kolkatta based design firm, Paul Design Centrum and local NGO, Jhargram SEVA, to develop a content strategy. The commission resulted in producing video content, photo content for online campaigns and product images for catalogue printing.

The Jhargram tribal belt is inhabited by the Santhali Tribe. This tribe is listed as a PVTG (Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group). Decades of civil strife between the Indian government and maoist rebel groups within the forest of this region had left this area severely under developed and the people in the remote villages struggled for years to life without fear for their lives.

But since 2012, the region has experienced stability after the rebels surrendered themselves and reached a peace deal with the government. This CSR effort was to train local village women in new design techniques to produce contemporary products using rope. The villagers have been producing rope using local sabai grass as raw material for several generations. The price they earn for the effort is paltry. With new designs and new products an effort is being made to ensure the women are able to earn a sustainable alternate source of income.