Gadchiroli Nov. 3 (District correspondent) Bamboo professor at Gondwana University’s Modern College and world-famous bamboo artist Meenakshi Walke has taken the initiative of women’s entrepreneurship development in a village in Jalgaon district.
Ms. Meenaxi, who is known as “The Bamboo Lady of India” has now shown the farmers and women the way of development through farming. This is an initiative to empower women by creating small-scale industries in the villages using bamboo.
Classical bamboo cultivation is progressing collectively in Khandesh region. If the farmer’s wife and children use bamboo in the field, empowerment will further increase. For this, the bamboo pattern has been started in Paroda village in Jalgaon district.
This unique initiative of the “Swamini Project” has been taken under the Adhar multi-purpose organization based in Jalgaon, Amalner. About 20 women farmers participated in this activity. Some of the women would later continue to teach other women and young girls.
It is noteworthy that Meenakshi Walke, has earlier made thousands of women self-reliant through bamboo skills in places like Palghar, Jalna, Sambhajinagar, Gadchiroli, Bhamragarh, Dhanora, Jambhli, Borda, and Chandrapur. She has trained more than 350 women for a month in Navpada village in Birbhum district of West Bengal, located on the border of Bhutan and Bangladesh. She has given training at many places under the Umaid, NABARD, and KVIC also.
Presently, she is teaching bamboo handicrafts to BA students at Model College, Gondwana University. A short film named “Tai” has been made about Meenakshi Walke, who was awarded in the House of Commons of England. Legendary actress like Shubhangi Gokhale and Vibhavari Deshpande have acted in the film based on Minakshi.
Meenakshi was also invited as a celebrity guest in a special episode of Marathi “Kaun Banega Crorepati”. Sandeep Mali of the Swamini Project in Jalgaon said that there is a lot of curiosity and respect for Meenakshi in the bamboo sector. Her innovative designs, like Bamboo QR Code Scanner, Pocket Batch, and crown have become quite famous.
