Kullvi WHIMS
A Collaborative Partnership
The Women of Himachal Pradesh Self Help Group (Kullvi WHIMS) started out as a group of 9 women artisans from the small village of Naggar, in the mountainous region of Himachal Pradesh, India. The women mobilized into a self-help group with the help and support of Nisha Subramaniam in 2010. The aim of the group is to share their handknit and handwoven textiles globally, by producing exclusive collections for likeminded businesses, like RANI & REINE.
RANI & REINE then finds a market for the women’s beautiful work, while supporting the creation of handcrafted textiles made with sheep’s wool indigenous to the mountain region where the women live.
The group recently increased to 14 artisans, and continues to grow as demand for their handcrafted products increases.
Palmo and Indra
Vandana and Lata
The Artisans
Vandana, Indra, Lata, Palmo, Neema, Renu, Teji Devi, Sapna, and Kusum.
The women possess a variety of skills in traditional local craft forms such as hand spinning, knitting, crochet, weaving and natural dyeing.
They operate in a decentralized manner. Mainly working from home, they fit their craft into their busy daily lives amidst cooking, caring for children, harvesting apples and other fruit from the family orchards, and caring for livestock and gardens.
The Land
They meet to review current collaborations and distribute new orders amongst themselves, to package orders, to collect local seasonal plants such as berries and barks for natural dyeing, and to clean large and unruly batches of freshly sheared raw wool.
