KARACHI, April 1: A large number of people visited an exhibition of handloom product, organized by Hawwa, an NGO, at the Alliance Francaise.

At the show, various dresses prepared from handloom cloth, Khaddar, by women artisans from all over the country have been put on display. The two-day exhibition will remain open from 10am to 8pm on Saturday also.

Hawwa chief Kishwar Naheed said that the project was being run on a no profit and no loss basis to serve the poor women artisans living in remote rural areas of the country.

She said a major problem of women artisans was the marketing of their handicrafts owing to which a class of middlemen had emerged depriving them of a major chunk of the profits.

According to Ms Naheed, in order to eliminate this parasite class of merchants she travelled to length and breadth of the country and approached these skilled ladies in remote villages and purchased their handicrafts.

She said that her NGO had an outlet in Islamabad where these handicrafts were sold at slightly less price than being offered at other commercial outlets, and after taking just Rs50 per piece, the rest of the amount was given to the artisan.

Ms Naheed said that the NGO had a training centre in Lahore where the artisans were also provided trainings in marketing, weaving etc so that they could do their work efficiently.

She informed that the NGO was also organizing an Asian Women Artisan Festival at Lahore and over 50 women artisan from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives etc will be participating in it. The week-long festival opens on April 8, she added.