About Friends Valley Youth Society

Friends Valley Youth Society strives towards producing the finest Handicraft products by stepping on the ladder of aged old inherited skills and knowledge of Handicrafts. Our Company with its roots deeply buried in the prosperous Handloom and Handicraft sector of the J&K is endeavoring towards streamlining the unorganized skill possed by many into an organized one. The company also provides training to artisans and provides marketing services to help them sell their products. The company also provides online marketing and e-commerce services to help artisans sell their products online.

Kashmir is known worldwide for its Arts & crafts, scenic beauty and climate. The diverse craft articles range from woolen textiles of fleecy soft texture and matchless excellence of hand woven carpets of finest warp and weft, to the exquisite designs worked on paper machie, wood work, silverware and other textile crafts. The embroidery of Kashmir often called, as ‘Kasida’ is world famous. The term ‘Kasida’ is a poetic form developed in pre Islamic Arabia and perpetuated throughout Islamic literary history in the present. So this term, at some point of time must have been borrowed from literature to arts of decorating cloth. There are generally four major types of embroideries practiced in Kashmir i.e. Chain stitch embroidery or crewel, Zari embroidery, Darner embroidery and Sozni embroidery.

The handicrafts sector of Jammu and Kashmir is characterized by 5-6 lakh artisans, 179 major craft clusters. The sector is labour intensive and contributes significantly to employment generation, especially in the rural areas. In addition to the high potential for employment, the sector is economically important from the point of low capital investment, high ratio of value addition, and high potential for export and foreign exchange earnings for the country. The demand for handicrafts is on a rise in the domestic as well as the international markets. Hand crafted products of Jammu and Kashmir enjoy a unique position in the market and have huge potential for further development. Further, with the growing inflow of tourists in the State, there is a growing local market for craft products.

Though, globally & nationally there is huge demand for the regional handicrafts of Kashmir. However, issues like limited or no design intervention, unawareness about new emerging markets and poor infrastructural facilities along with competition from other Handicraft-producing countries have marginalized the share of Kashmir handicrafts globally.

Among the embroidery based crafts in Kashmir, sozni,crewel,chainstitch and zari are being practised throughout the Kashmir region especially in the rural areas.Sozni craft refers to a type of hand embroidery, traditionally done on pashmina and hand woven woollen fabric. It employs extremely fine stitches applied very close to each other creating intricate patterns. The stitches are executed using coloured threads and a fine steel needle.While there are many different stitches used for rendering these patterns, the Sozni craft predominantly employs the Sozni stitch which is a kind of fine couching stitch with a reinforcing stitch laid over it. Also uses the darn stitch and stem stitch. The button hole stitch, herring bone stitch, chain stitch, satin stitch and knot stitches are also used but in limited proportions. This embroidery craft from Kashmir is distinctive because of the predominant use of this Sozni stitch, both in the outlining and the filling up of the motif and even in the rendering of petals and leaves.

While needle work is done around the world, Sozni has established itself in Kashmir, as a highly evolved craft industry with its own language of designs, colours and motifs along with a streamlined production process which employs skilled craftsmen who are mainly men. In fact walking along the by lanes of Srinagar, it is common to come across men sitting near the low windows of their living rooms, fabric on their knees, baskets of coloured rolls of threads, silently adding another colourful line to the fabric. The only sounds are of passing along the basket or when the most experienced of them suggests modifications when necessary or of some quiet music playing in the background. It is also uncommon for male artisans to be working as embroiderers in other parts of the country where embroidery is largely done by the women and the motivation is not entirely commercial. The Sozni embroidery is traditionally used to ornament either the edges with trailing borders, or placed on the front panels or sometimes the entire surface of kurtas, with small buties and netlike patterns. In fact, the Jamawar is a type of highly elaborate, allover pattern where the ground colour of the pashmina fabric is not visible at all. The typical motifs used in such high value embroidery are traditional almond motifs (badamdaar) or floral patterns of Iris or rose motifs. Another form of embroidery which is being practised in Kashmir is Crewel & Chainstich. The embroidery is being done with the help of hook over a thick fabric locally known Dusoot.However,over the years exploration in terms of base material is continously on and other base materials including linen,velvet,jute etc in variety of colours are also being widely used.The crewel & chainstitch embroidery is done on variety of products ranging from furnishing items like bed covers,curtains,throws etc. to accessories like carry bags,purses and pouches.The emboidery is generally done using woollen threads 04 either single or twoply.The artisans are skilled enough to create variety of designs with flora to fauna motifs.The artisans associated with the emroidery crafts are facing lots of challenges most importantly poor earnings.

Kupwara District is one of 10 districts located in Kashmir region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The river Kishenganga, originating from the Himalayas, flows through the outer areas of the district from east to west.Kupwara is the backward frontier District of Kashmir Valley, full of scenic beauty. Dense forests and rich wild life make it significant from tourism and wildlife point of view. Nature has been very kind to Kupwara. District Kupwara was carved out form erstwhile District Baramulla in the year 1979. The District Headquarter “Kupwara” is situated at a distance of 90 kms from the summer capital of state, i.e. Srinagar. Most of the people depend on agriculture and horticulture. There is a good production and business of walnuts in Kupwara. Handicrafts have been the main-stay of the State’s Economy since Centuries. The dawn of modern era of industries least affected the viability of the crafts that always had the capacity to hold sway in even International Markets. Conscious of this colossal potential for economic activity of the sector, the Government has ever been according priorities for it’s over all development. A full fledged Department for projecting the crafts on wider scale was established on 1972-73. In order to give greater impetus to the development of handicrafts, the Government have been constantly introducing new programmes and schemes. Craft Bazars and Expos are being organized in many places in the country and in these exhibitions the artisans come directly into contact with the customers and sell their products without the intervention of the middlemen. The artisans have been able to earn crores of rupees through these diversified marketing out-lets. To ensure that artisan have enough liquidity the Government has introduced Artisan Credit Card Scheme under which the Government pays 10% interest subsidy on loans upto to Rs.1.00 lacs for a period of 5 years. Friends valley Youth Society works for rural development and Poverty alleviation. It is located at Batergam Kupwara, Pin-193222 has been empanlled with O/o Development commissioner handicrafts ministry of textiles Govt. of India and is affiliated under the ‘Nehru Yuva Kendra’, Government of India and also State Social Welfare Board J&K. Our organisation operates in a neglected and impoverished area where need is great and service are few this far the organisation has achieved success in ministering the needs of the Kashmir region of Jammu and Kashmir state. The purpose of this organisation is to equip artisans and farmers group with the technical and organisational skill needed to increase the efficiency production and earning. Kupwara district is situated in north side this is the same distance of 90 Kms from the Srinagar and situated on. This organisation provides work for the handicraft artisans. The people of the areas are economically backward. Friends Valley Youth Society helps these artisans and provide the training to the people.