Have you ever had a brilliant idea and then realized that you don’t have the materials you need to bring it to life? The Robbinsville Innovation 4-H Club is making sure that the artisans of RDT’s Handicrafts Workshop never have that problem again.

Over the past few months, the Robbinsville Innovation 4-H Club has been working with the Handicrafts Workshop in Anantapur to set up a Drop-in Innovation Lab. The Club has purchased materials for the lab and worked with the artisans over Zoom to teach them how to use their new supplies.

The Drop-In lab is now complete with a Glow Forge laser cutting machine and air filter, two die cut machines, a paper guillotine machine, and embossing and sublimation equipment. Now the artisans of the Handicrafts Workshop will have no limits to their creativity.

RDT’s Handicrafts Workshop offers people with disabilities an opportunity to learn a trade and provide for themselves. The workshop produces notebooks, paper Mache decorations, wickerwork and more.

For young women like Sharada, who contracted polio when she was five, the Handicrafts Workshop has opened the door to a new, more independent life.

“I’ve been happy since I started working,” says Sharada. “I feel like an adult.”

Thanks to the generosity of the Robbinsville Innovation 4-H Club, there will be more opportunities for people like Sharada support themselves and live lives of independence and dignity.

Text by VFF USA