Rakhi Shah and other women inspire through handmade creations at Rakhi Fair
BILKULONLINE
By Rafat Quadri
Ahmedabad, Aug 14: One who suffers knows it well as to what suffering is?
But, there are people who do not indulge into self-pity or keep taking excuses for what they are deprived of and instead improve their skills and work on things that bring joy and pride to them.
Meet Rakhi Shah. Rakhi is herself subjected to polio condition since her infant age and has her left leg majorly lifeless. This has made her suffer all her life due to the fact that she is not fully normal to perform like other women but the self-motivated Rakhi decided to not stick to the deformity issue but move ahead with pride with what she has instead of crying on what she doesn’t have. She is an entrepreneur and also runs an NGO called ‘Samyak Women’s Club’ where she engages with self and others’ work specially the women entrepreneurs and also tries to help handicapped women, needy people, cancer hit children and others besides regularly organizing blood donation camps, carom and chess tournaments and organizes early seasonal fair of Rakhis and handicraft items . Handmade stuff is displayed and sold there at reasonable prices where over 50 stalls are arranged by the enterprising men and women who find it useful to exhibit and sell their creations which are usually handmade like rakhis, agarbatis (incense sticks etc). Rakhi has her own stall also in it which sells chocolates and handmade synthetic bouquets. She lends few stalls to the handicapped, mentally challenged people’s NGOs for free.
Rakhi says “We lend few stalls every year in the fair without charging any fee to the NGOs working for the cause of handicapped and mentally challenged children. Ides is to allow them a platform where they can display their presence and skills of the children attached to them. It brings joy and courage to their persona. Other stalls also are mostly offered to the women entrepreneurs who otherwise don’t have any form of shops and display points. I myself have a stall here displaying my own stuff like chocolates and bouquets which I make.”
Darshita B Shah another talented woman who is 90% physically challenged but doesn’t budge to the deformity and instead leads an NGO she formed ‘Helping Hand’. There were different stalls of women who brought their creativity and passion at their stalls in the fair which got an excellent response during August 12-13. On 14th 11th blood donation drive for Thalassemia children was organised at the same venue in Paldi area of Ahmedabad.
Damini Patel of ‘New Way’ school for mentally challenged children and Jaswantiben Caktcha of a similar NGO sold handicraft items made by the children through stalls.
Several women entrepreneurs like Pratichi Sunil Shah who was selling beautifully crafted and hand made imitation jewelry, and fancy articles, recycled craft creation etc at the venue which pleased the visitors.
(Rafat Quadri can be contacted at editorbilkul@gmail.com)
