Fashion designer pledges to provide skill education to rural children amid COVID-19 scare

With an idea of sustainable development, fashion designer Manish Tripathi who in the times of pandemic employed thousands of women across several villages in the country has now planned to spread the wings of his initiative 'Shehar se gaon tak' and provide skill training to children of rural India under the banner 'design paathshaala'. After regularly visiting remote areas in several states, Tripathi noticed the immense creative acumen in the children of women employed by him. Making sure that their talent is not wasted due to dearth of opportunity, Tripathi has now vowed to impart creative education to these budding artists, thus fulfilling the purpose of instilling self-reliance in every child he meets during this journey.

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'Why not channelise these creative forces?' 

Under this programme, the under privilege children will be connected with the most creative minds from across the country. Children will paint and draw to express their creativity freely. They will later make products which will be sold in the market. Tripathi also plans to enroll NIFT in his endeavour.

Talking about his initiative Tripathi told Republic TV, "Design paathshala actually emerged while being on the journey of 'Shehar se gaon tak'. I noticed rural & underprivileged kids doing some amazing creative stuff without any help or facilities, so many things out of nothing. Seeing all that on my regular visits to these villages, I thought why not channelise these creative forces and train these kids to do even more."

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"Since these kids are deprived of creative education. Now, I and my team visit these group of kids at various location in and around Delhi, NCR. We provide them free colours and stationeries and free classes as well. These kids do have big dreams. My little effort to put some colours to those dreams," he added. 

Tripathi has employed thousands so far and plans to enroll over 50,000 women in his initiative by October this year. His vision also entails women empowerment as his majority of employees are females. Tripathi started with making masks after he saw an old man picking up one from the garbage and ever since learning from his experiences he has never looked back. He not only gives them employment but also makes sure that they have access to all essential items.

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