Caring for the Planet: these children from Chennai ‘craft’ change using sustainable methods

What if children are empowered to instrumentality connected the mantle of teachers, and adults are astatine the receiving extremity of cognition transfer. What if children schoolhouse their elders successful the grammar of conscious living. What if children are conversant with the idioms of sustainability, root discards and alteration them into desirable, eco-friendly, mundane utilitarian objects and eye-catching decor. On November 15, astatine the clip of this nonfiction going to press, Kid’s Kraft Carnival 2025 — Edition 2 (organised by Boutique Bougainvillea and The Kraft Faktor) was nether mode successful Velachery, demonstrating that these what-ifs tin beryllium realities.

Around a twelve children successful the 10 to 15 property bracket were holding sessions connected a assortment of art-based practices defined by sustainable processes. The children showed the attendees however to marque origami-based decor, quilled partition decor, quilled jewellery, artwork connected upcycled boards, clay-based creation and palm-leaf decor. Various different creation forms were besides successful attendance (crochet, macrame and decoupage among them) and each of them were viewed done the lens of sustainability and the eyes of the young ones that person mastered them done sustained practice. Some of these children person instrumentality these skillsets beyond play sessions to physique brands that fuse sustainability with art.

Undoing a knotty problem

Thirteen-year-old Keshavanath Shankar stumbled into macramé a twelvemonth and a fractional ago, erstwhile idle hours astatine location and the lack of a tv demanded a much originative diversion. Crochet proving difficult, helium began experimenting with knots aft noticing friends and online creators moving with macramé. “It conscionable felt comfortable,” helium says of the trade that has since go his regular practice.

Keshavanath works exclusively with sustainably sourced fabric cords from Craft Affairs. “Even the fabric is eco-friendly,” helium notes, aligning his materials with the sustainability principles taught to him. He chiefly makes pouches and keychains that are priced betwixt ₹60 and ₹250 though larger pieces specified arsenic partition hangings and vessel holders request considerably much clip and effort.

His process is exacting. He begins by measuring and cutting cords earlier knotting them into their last form.

“I bask astir each part, but the past spot wherever I person to necktie each azygous knot and chopped it,” helium admits. Bigger customised orders travel with challenges: “I propulsion the threads truthful galore times that my tegument starts shedding.” Mistakes, nevertheless small, are ne'er ignored. “I undo each knot until it is fixed.”

For Keshavanath, sustainability is simply a responsibility. “My procreation deserves a cleaner world,” helium says. His connection to buyers is simple: take products that are stylish and eco-friendly — creations that bash not adhd to the planet’s burden.

Decoupage for the planet

With scraps of paper, aged sheets, and dried flowers, 10-year-old Maya Ram, a Grade 5 pupil astatine Adyar Theosophical Society, turns mundane objects into decoupage creations. Decoupage, the trade of layering insubstantial and cloth to decorate surfaces, allows her to repurpose discarded materials into functional décor.

Using torn insubstantial papers, aged bedsheets, dried flowers, and leftover materials, Maya applies layers onto circular pots to make sustainable décor. “I person besides decomposed insubstantial papers with leaves, flowers, floral designs, and different patterns,” says Maya, a nonmigratory of Indira Nagar, Adyar. She tin besides personalise items: “If a lawsuit wants thing specific, similar a canine design, I tin effort to find decomposed insubstantial insubstantial oregon cloth for them, though it volition outgo a small more.”

She cautiously applies the papers to circular pots, a process that demands patience and attention. “The insubstantial is rectangular, but the cookware is circular, truthful it is hard to spot it correctly without bubbles,” she says. Each portion takes betwixt 1 and one-and-a-half hours, depending connected size and design, and she finishes them with a sealant, choosing eco-friendly options wherever possible.

Maya began her signifier astatine seven, creating items for foundation with guidance from her mother. “My parent helped maine with pricing since I did not cognize however to bash it,” she recalls. Now she is processing her ain brand, Fusspots, with the tagline: “Be fussy, beryllium eco-friendly” calculating prices based connected materials and effort.

Beyond selling, Maya encourages biology awareness, refurbishing aged pots and showing however mundane items tin person a 2nd life. “I privation buyers to spot however sustainable products tin besides beryllium décor,” she says.

She besides adapts her designs to conscionable idiosyncratic requests, experimenting with shapes, patterns and customised themes. She points retired that each task teaches her caller skills successful planning, pricing and sourcing responsibly.

Leafing done art 

At 10 years, P.S. Thara, from Kasturba Nagar, Adyar and a pupil astatine St. Patrick’s High School, CISCE is already carving a niche for herself successful the satellite of sustainable craft. Her travel began astatine the property of 9 during an Organic Farmers Market accumulation successful Kasturba Nagar, wherever she was introduced to the creation of palm-leaf crafting.

“On the archetypal day, we made fishes, headbands, bracelets and watches,” she recalls. Thara has mastered a scope of designs with thenar leaves, including stars, squares, and diamonds. “The classical is 1 prima and 3 diamonds,” she explains, “but if they want, they tin customise it.”

Palm leaves, the authorities histrion of Tamil Nadu, are celebrated not lone for their taste value but besides for their ecological benefits. Biodegradable, people durable, and requiring nary chemic treatment, they person emerged arsenic a sustainable alternate successful modern craft. “Since it’s natural, it forms a bladed furniture of dust. You person to particulate it with a paintbrush each time,” Thara explains, highlighting some the material’s charm and its quirks.

For Thara, the trade is much than a originative pursuit. “It makes maine consciousness calm and improves my concentration,” she says. Encouraged by her parent — “She said I could bash it again if I committed to it”, Thara has continued to refine her skills.

Just up of the exhibition, wher she was going to thatch visitors, Thara said: “I privation to thatch them. If they want, they tin learn, and if they want, they tin bargain it.”