Working on restoring valley's traditional Namda, a felted wool rug, Arifa Jan is a woman entrepreneur from Kashmir. She said that the traditional Namda craft was disappearing from Kashmir due to the scarcity of raw materials and skilled workers. A resident of Eidgah Srinagar, Jan has sold her products to various countries and has collaborated with 25 artisans and trained over 100 women in Kashmir. She has also set up three production units to revive the traditional Namda. Arifa said that the Namda art has enabled her to travel widely to Kyrgyzstan and the United States where her work was highly praised.


A Commerce Graduate From Craft Development Institute 


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Jan, an entrepreneur who is a commerce graduate has pursued her studies at the Craft Development Institute (CDI).  "After joining CDI, I got to know more about the crafts and the artisans. Therein I got to know how our crafts have taken a huge dip," news agency ANI quoted Arifa as saying. While Arifa was pursuing a course at CDI, she had to go out for an internship in different states.


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Journey To Revive Dying Namda Craft


During that period of internship, she saw how other states have preserved their traditional crafts and keeping in view their efforts to revive the diminishing craft, an idea popped into her mind and she started working on a revival of Namda. "I took up the revival of the Namda craft project in 2012 and I started it with five artisans. However, after three years, 15 more artisans joined me to revive the Namda work," Jan said to ANI. Jan said that she did not work really to earn out of it. "My main motive of revival was to keep the dying crafts of Kashmir alive," ANI quoted Arifa as saying.


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Recipient Of Nari Shakhti Purskar


In 2020, Arifa was awarded the Nari Shakhti Purskar, which was presented to her by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind. In 2018 she was also nominated as the chairperson of the women's wing of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI) and has also bagged a state award. Jan said, "Besides employing 25 artisans and training more than 100 women I am also focused on increasing the wages of the artisans from Rs-100 to Rs-450."