Beej is a fair trade business which was created in January 2008 by Australian artist/designer Meg Wilkinson and Indian Businessman Savar Ram. Beej was set up in response to their joint dream to provide work for the locals of Pushkar Rajasthan, bringing change and hope to a small corner of the developing world.

Meg is passionate about the preservation of arts and culture and India’s rich and colourful creative landscape inspires the designs whilst she draws on the skills of local artists to create the product. Beej not only provides much needed employment for locals but showcases the artistry of the Pushkar region.

Beej garments are made from hand woven Khadi cotton, embroidered and/or painted by local artists and designed to fit every body.

Beej means seed in Hindi. Beej is sewing the seeds of change in the lives of men and women in developing countries around the world.

Embroiderery

Savar knew of a group of women in a small village 20 kms outside of Pushkar. The women are from the farming caste and are in desperate need of employment to boost the income of their small community. Due to climate change, growing food in this region is no longer as stable as it once was and so they need another way to create a living.

Meg paid the women to undertake a 10 day training program in which she taught them how to do the hand embroidery necessary for her designs. Embroidery, along with other local handicrafts are skills in danger of dying out due to modernisation and mechanisation.

Painted Bags

Om Prakash is a local truck painter and miniature painter who has found that work has been dropping off due to less demand. Since the introduction of flatbed semi trailers there has been less demand for the art of truck painting and miniature painting is done for the tourist trade and is not enough to support his family. So, inspired by the painted Tata’s of Rajasthan, Meg and Savar decided that they could get Om to paint sturdy canvas bags with images of India on them.