Nool Koota at GoodEarth Malhar

Nool Koota at GoodEarth Malhar

GoodEarth – November 30, 2021

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Nool-koota-image

Introduction

Nool Koota today is a group of people who want to meet, create, learn and teach constantly. Anything that involves creativity and imagination and yarn excites them and they are always looking for new projects to help hone, share and develop their skills.

Nool Koota – the strands of inception

While Sandhya (one of the founding members) was living in Kolkata, a friend, Lindsay, who ran a non-profit organisation (Jan Chetana Manch) in Jharkhand, saw her knitting a scarf. Lindsay then mentioned that they had a lot of premature babies in their hospital and were having a tough time finding woollen sweaters, caps and socks for the very tiny new born babies. Sandhya offered to make a few sets and Lindsay found them very useful. She then mentioned that they needed at least 30 sets every year. A few friends joined Sandhya in knitting/crocheting sweaters, caps and bootees for the premature babies. After Sandhya moved to Bangalore and GoodEarth Malhar in 2018, several residents here heard about what she was doing and wanted to chip in.

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Gaining cohesion and traction

Things started to gain traction as Sandhya was joined by Brinda, an accomplished quilter who also knitted, crocheted and embroidered, and Sujatha, who was a very eager and quick learner. The group grew very quickly, adding many new members every week. While many of the group know how to sew, knit and crochet, once they had finished creating objects for family and friends, they found that there wasn’t much scope to use their skills. Knitting/crocheting for premature babies suddenly gave them a ‘purpose’ and everyone took to it with aplomb.

While this was going on Sandhya registered an NGO – Sakshara Trust. The project for premature babies is one of the Trust’s activities, so they started making sets for the babies with wool contributed by the Trust. Word spread about the project, and prompted more people to learn to knit and crochet so that they could also support their work. The group became more formal and acquired a name just before the Malhar Mela in 2019. The Nool Koota had a stall filled with creations by various members at the Mela, and sold almost all the stock. The proceeds of the sale were donated to Sakshara Trust.

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Nool Koota – Stringing together a difference today and reaching out to the community

Nool Koota has now expanded its scope and the group has taken to creating toys, jewellery, garments and anything else that can be created with yarn. Gradually, a few children and household help have also showed interest in learning to knit and crochet. A domestic worker has earned over 5000/- in the past few months making mufflers, amigurumi toys and coasters.

Teaching the household help to learn new skills which can help in supplementing their income and income generation for others with no employment is in line with Sakshara’s vision, so it has become a good symbiotic relationship with the NGO.

While the Nool Koota is working on new projects, their initial project of providing woollens for the babies continues. Last year (2020) they sent over 40 sets to the Hospital in Jharkhand, and also made some woollen products for the Ashwini Hospital in Gudalur and woollen caps for children at the St. Philomena’s Hospital in Bangalore.

Currently Nool Koota’s Whatsapp group has more than 50 members and most of them are busy creating something or the other with their hands. A core team of 10-12 members meet physically once a week from 11 am to 1 pm on Tuesdays at the Courtyard Koota (post the COVID lockdown they have resumed their meetings in November). Members take turns to conduct workshops to share a particular skill over one or more sessions. The unselfish sharing of knowledge and the pleasure in each other’s achievements is the driving force behind the Nool Koota.

During the pandemic, and the ensuing isolation, the team stopped meeting on a regular basis, but then decided to have some online workshops on long and short embroidery, vegetable dyeing and kawadi quilting. They also met for sessions on basic quilting techniques, filet and mosaic crochet, amongst others.

Recently, a large group made 125 sets of crocheted coasters for GoodEarth. This is going to be one of the gifts created within the community to be given to owners of GoodEarth Medley. The Nool Koota team felt honoured to have been given this opportunity.

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Threading Events and community activities

Nool Koota’s latest event was an exhibition showcasing a sample of their creations at ‘Spin a Yarn’ at the Courtyard Koota.

One of the most appreciated projects was the tree-bombing that Nool Koota conducted in Footprints, Resonance and Terraces with crocheted and knitted pieces – the project aimed to show how different shapes and colours could come together to create beauty, and humans could come together similarly without any caste, gender or colour biases.

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Courtyard Koota at GoodEarth Malhar is an attempt to create more meaningful ways of engagement, as individuals and communities, through the arts. Courtyard Koota plays host to many other collectives, groups and people who seek to make a difference, Nool Koota is a prominent collective that melds creativity, imagination and yarn to foster positive change.

Hand-work is gaining appreciation and hopefully a market. The money generated from the sale of products created by hand goes to augment the income of families. Currently the Nool Koota is proud to have members from all the Good Earth Malhar communities, GoodEarth Orchard and friends in other parts of Bangalore. The Nool Koota hopes to now reach out to people in the communities around Mysore road – Anchepalaya and Doddabele to just name two – to teach them to create beautiful products for their families and the market.