banglanatak dot com (BNC), accredited with UN ECOSOC status, advisory status to UNESCO global ICH committee and global partnership with UNWTO, has been working in rural Bengal to safeguard intangible cultural heritage and promote cultural diversity for inclusive and sustainable development since 2004-05 with their flagship initiative Art for Life (AFL), which has been adopted by West Bengal Government through its partnership with UNESCO New Delhi since 2013, which has benefitted the rural artists fraternity immensely and contributed to SDGs.
Village Festivals are an integral part of banglanatak’s model, which promotes rural cultural tourism, encourages community led village tourism and has made these artists’ villages as new destinations, leading to socio-economic benefit and bringing pride to village, artists and art forms.
Post pandemic, very recently, everything opened and thus they also announced 2 back-to-back village festivals starting next weekend. Both festivals are open to all, free entry, but double vaccination needed for visitors to enter mela premises.
On Nov 26-28, a Baul Fakiri mela will be hosted at Bannabagram Baul Ashram in Ausgram (https://goo.gl/maps/
On Dec 3-5, they are holding Ripples Festival in association with British Council India covering East and West Bardhaman districts of West Bengal. The festival provides unique opportunities to tourists visiting the district of East Bardhaman covering Dariyapur and Bannabagram in Ausgram and connect to Baul singers, Kantha stitch artists, Wooden doll and Dokra crafts persons living in the region and learn about their artforms. The festival in West Bardhaman is a celebration through a series of theatres imbibing local folk traditions to be held at Tepantar Theatre village in the Satkahaniya village in Kanksa block near Panagarh. https://youtu.be/X_-L5AWSCYA
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Great initiative 👏👏👏👏