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EDOTORIAL |
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Unleashing Creativity Among Homemakers |
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One of the greatest failure of the Honey Bee Network has been uncovering and unleashing the creativity of women and roadside workers. Some have argued that there are many self-imposed constraints which prevent women from articulating their creativity to its fullest potential. But then it may seem like blaming the victim. Others argue that because they were denied the tools of blacksmithy and carpentry centuries ago, therefore they could not fashion the tools they imagined for reducing their drudgery. But there are a large number of women who can afford to hire any skilled person they need, why did not they do so? Our team at the National Innovation Foundation [NIF] involved in Ignite awards every year has observed that among children the share of girls is almost half, then why does this share go down so drastically among adults?Many times, by using our intellectual prowess in explaining a situation, we reduce our uneasiness with facts and thus mentally accommodate inertia. Are we not trying the same in this case? What can be alternative ways to overcome this lacuna? Having more women who are willing to travel to rural areas and urban slums to help in searching for creative and innovative women, and workers may help. We have not succeeded much in this effort as yet. Will NGOs working with women help in this case, not much as yet. If after reading this, some groups/individuals offer to cooperate, a purpose would have been served.Let me share a few experiments we have recently started and seek feedback from the readers. Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions [SRISTI] has been organizing Traditional Food Festival viz., Sattvik for the last fourteen years, earlier at IIMA campus and now outside in a bigger Ahmedabad ground. This year we had a small community food and nutrition lab organised by GIAN (Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network) at Sattvik. Idea was to share the process of making traditional nutritious food so that younger generation learns to get more out of less i.e. more nutrition out of less cost and material. Culinary creativity has been a traditional preserve of women though situation is changing among youth and for good. Now even men wish to learn cooking and that is the way it should be so. Hope was that if we set up such community nutritious food lab, both mobile and stationery, and help women and men exchange their creative pursuits, it might help in uncovering new food based innovations. Since more women are engaged in this activity, their creativity might then come out on the surface. In this age of fast food, slow food, sattvik food, such exchange of knowledge, skills and traditional and contemporary methods of cooking might make a dent on our inertia. This platform will give an area where women might outperform men and thus their distinctiveness might get recognition. In some cases, these food formulations may even trigger market demand and pave the way for food-preneurship i.e. food based entrepreneurs. Many years ago, when sweet balls made of grains of barnyard millet, foxtail millet, were introduced at Sattvik festival, it caught the imagination of urban consumers; and the concerned villagers started getting order to make similar sweets at different occasions. Market base demand may help in conserving such crops and their varietal diversity. At the same time food formulations/recipes may uncover women’s creative knowledge.In future, GIAN may have mobile community food labs with a variety of ingredients, associated range of recipes along with their nutritional significance listed, may visit different regions and may create knowledge, skill and nutritional bridges between different generations. Elderly women and others may share their knowledge about nutritious dishes for pregnant women, lactating mothers, elderly and different groups of workers. Workers who have to slog in the field may need such food which can replace their energy at less cost, without much lag and causing too much fatigue. Such knowledge not only improves their quality of life but also contributes towards preventive health. It is well understood that preventive health is much more democratic than curative one.We need to know, how well to communicate the skill and innovations of elderly women who may not be able to go to other regions in rural or urban areas. May be having them at hand through phone may be one way to get answer to questions which may arise while practicing their knowledge.Sharing these sessions live on social media may bring many new stakeholders in the learning loop. When we did facebook live of the dishes made of aloe vera and papaya at Sattvik, there was huge response from around the world. One of the mothers from Chicago, USA commented that she could not make her children eat papaya but with this pudding, she might succeed in making her children relish papaya dishes.The challenge is to do enough research before each learning session so that learners find the sessions rewarding enough. The communities which want to have host mobile food lab may do homework as well and then use mobile cooking facilities to have an element of surprise for the learners. Else, young people with limited attention span may not remain engaged. Blending taste with aesthetics, affordability and nutrition is not going to be easy. But we hope that unleashing of hitherto underexplored creative cutlery knowledge will provide a point of conversation to uncover others kind of experiments and innovations pursued by women. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee 27(3) 3, 2016 |
