GJSCI brings students of Design Revive Contest to Hupari

The Gems & Jewellery Skill Council of India (GJSCI) is undertaking a competition namely Design Revive Contest in order to bring back the love for age-old jewellery making traditions. It introduced students of the contest’s preliminary round to the silver town of Hupari where they interacted with the artisans of a 200-year old technique of silver jewellery making.

For 200 years, the art of silver jewellery making has been the highlight at the town of Hupari, near Kolhapur in western India Hupari artisans are the sole supplier of seamless silverballs, known as Gujrav/Ghungaroos to the entire country.

GJSCI has been relentlessly contributing towards Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Skill India program and has been taking several measures and steps to nurture the 3.5 million skilled yet uncertified labour forces of the gems and jewellery industry.

As the old tradition struggles to keep pace with evolving market scenario due to lack of exposure and training, GJSCI decided to bridge the gap with the Design Revive Contest. The Contest will bring aspiring designers to showcase their designs to the artisans of Hupari.

The Design Revive Contest is an inter institute level national contest where talents from across the country have participated and the handpicked 20 who made it to the preliminary round will be visiting Hupari and their designs will be published in a booklet that will be disseminated amongst the artisans. The final round of Design Revive Contest will be held in Mumbai. The winning designs will be marketed by the UN.

“Since inception, GJSCI has worked towards the betterment of uncertified artisans in the gems and jewellery industry. With every initiative we aim to educate and train the core of this industry in accord to global standards. With the same objective, GJSCI formulated Design revive contest integrating Hupari, that will enable the artisans to learn about new designs and trends at the same time give students an opportunity to interact with artisans”, said Mr. Prem Kothari, Chairman, and GJSCI.