Sharmila Sen, an artist who lived and worked in eastern India, has been Ohrna’s beacon.
Sharmila began training tribal women in Bengal in the early nineties, running a home-based jute enterprise. Through this initiative, she sold products embroidered by these women, in local exhibitions. The enterprise had an immense impact on their lives, and many women came back with stories of how the income helped educate their children or solved some of their basic monetary problems.
It is this empowerment of rural women that Ohrna is trying to take forward, while also promoting sustainable, organic materials like jute.
Sharmila’s designs have been embroidery-intensive, using embroidery traditions and skills of the region where she worked by combining jute and wool. We wished to retain at least one of her original designs at Ohrna, and took it to artisans in Hubli for its application to our intricately embroidered Meditation Cushions.
Today Ohrna proudly takes forward Sharmila’s legacy and introduces embroidered jute to wider markets. We are honored to have her as a mentor, and to have her blessings to take her vision forward.
"There's no language that can describe how much Ohrna means to me. It makes me so happy”, says Sharmila.
“I ran my venture for 24 years but had to give it up for various reasons. It was like a child that I could no longer take care of, but I'm so grateful that my child has found a loving and nurturing home in Ohrna. I pray Ohrna grows to even greater heights" she adds.
Ohrna believes in responsible design. Our focus is use of sustainable materials, employment of rural women, preservation of rich craft traditions and packaging in up cycled materials.
We train for free and often employ women with minimum skills. We design to customers' needs and also constantly adapt our designs for ease of making, for our makers. Many of our artisans are from Mann Deshi Foundation.