Manippon at IUJ Open Day

 

The Manippon Kizuna Project sign!

On may 19th Manippon made its debut, selling handmade Manipuri products at IUJ's (International University of Japan) Open Day Festival. The festival saw people visit the college from all over Niigata prefecture and Minami Minami Uonuma City, and was filled with multi-cultural treats and festivities. 

We at Manippon named this first event the Kizuna Project (the Bonds Projects when translated from Japanese) to emphasize the connection between Japan and Manipur, and in the hopes that it would be the first of many. Overall the project was a success and we were able to sell almost our whole stock of products. The locals were very sympathetic to our cause, and we also recieved visits from IUJ's President, Masakatsu Mori, and several professors. We also set a new president at Open Day, as we were the only group to sell products, in addition to dolling out Indian tea to our guests for 10 yen a cup. We also recieved numerous orders for products that were unfortunately sold out, like our most popular produt the cane-handled bag; see the far left below)

Manippon's booth at Open Day

In the beginning the Kizuna project had a simple aim: to sell the products of Manipur in hopes of providing extra benefits to Manipuri workers. However our success and the sincere interest we received from visitors, built the foundation (and our hopes) for extending our activities and attempting to make ever larger contributions to Manipur. From that day on our schedule seemed seemed to fill up mercilessly with ambitions and plans, and our operations began to snowball. And this was at a time when we were still finishing our theses! Luckily all of the members survived to tell the tale.

 Manippon's Manipuri representative, Devi (far right), with IUJ's President Mori, who also purchased one of our wallets!

 Devi posing with Gretchen, IUJ's Career Adviser, and me in the background gorging myself on Thai curry (thanks Meow)

Please let us know if you have any inquiries about the Open Day or the Manippon Kizuna Project. For a list of our products please see our facebook page ( http://www.facebook.com/ManipponGlobal ).  

Until next time!

Introducing Manippon!

Hello! This is the blog of Manippon Global, a Japan-based NGO striving to improve the living standards of women in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. This blog will cover a wide range of topics from the organization's activities to the socio-economic state of affairs of Manipur, Manipuri culture, and the philosophy of volunteerism that rests at the heart of Manippon. This blog will fulfill many purposes. Firstly, as we are merely a small group with a very limited budget (if it can be said that we have a budget at all), this virtual meeting place will be our primary means of communicating our goals, intentions, and explaining our activities. We strive to be a completely open organization, so it is here where we will seek to divulge every development that occurs, including important decisions made. Secondly, this place will be where we tell the story of our . Needless to say we came together around a goal and in pursuit of that goal many successes and failures, trials and tribulations, are sure to occur, and indeed we have already faced several. Third, through the discussion of our story, activities, goals, dreams, and hopes we hope that this blog will become a forum for discussion about humanitarianism and volunteerism, in addition to spreading awareness about Manipur. We hope that our posts will stimulate readers and give birth to numerous discussions. Please feel free to reply to any of our posts or contact us directly. We also welcome criticism enthusiastically.

Now, for a short introduction of Manippon's activities to get things running and a note on the writing of this blog.  Even at this early stage, there is much too much to put everything in one post so well will post about our history,founding, and other specifics in later posts.

Manippon Global, as was mentioned above, is an NGO in Japan that seeks to improve the living standards of Manipuri women. When one talks about improving living standards, one must inevitably address the possibility of increasing the income of the people in question. Different organizations approach this necessity in different ways. Some seek to provide education, some seek to improve infrastructure, some seek to donate money to the governing authority in the hopes that social services will improve. Through these strategies it is usually hoped that people's ability to provide for themselves will be positively effected.

 Our method in comparison to these is perhaps somewhat simpler. We seek to increase women's income by promoting the products they make overseas. These products have so far included traditional handmade goods and apparel (bags, sandals, purses, etc.). In short, we are expanding the market for their goods, opening them up to customers in developed countries who are willing to pay far more than is the standard in Manipur. The result is higher demand for the craftswomen and a higher yield for the products. This high yield is preserved by the volunteerism of Manippon's members who pay for the organization's activities out of their own pocket. Since its founding in April 2012, Manippon has expanded the network of shops and consumers open to Manipuri women in two Japanese prefectures, Niigata and Tokyo.

A quick note should also be said about our membership and the writing of this blog. The membership of Manippon is quite diverse, including people from various countries. If put generously, we have about 15 members. The activities of the organization are mainly managed by four of those members, namelyone American (me, middle in the above picture), one Manipuri Indian (far left), and two Japanese (the twins). Due to the fact that all four of us come from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, we all tend to have differing attitudes on differing issues. As we will all be contributing to this blog, these differences will be reflected in our individual styles and also in languages we use! There is little that can be done on this front, and we think that this will add color, not to mention a plurality of perspectives, to our story.

We hope our activities excite you as much as they excite us, and we look forward to hearing from you!