Situation

In India, a country of over 1 billion, carpentry is a major industry, employing lakhs of people, and yet is completely male-dominated. Despite the sector moving towards becoming more organised, with better wages, working conditions and opportunities, there have been no women in this line of work.

Brief

To create a campaign that builds awareness about the lack of women in carpentry and introduce India’s first female carpenters.

Objectives

The objective was to create awareness and generate discussion about what we believe women can or can't do, using the inherent lack of female representation in a profession as widespread as carpentry, while positioning Greenply as a driver of change that brings greater inclusiveness in carpentry.

Greenply partnered with Archana Women’s Centre, a not-for-profit organisation in Kerala, South India, that works to train women with professional skills, including carpentry. We asked get them to build a wardrobe, which was displayed as an installation in an art gallery. Several hand-made objects were also displayed in the cupboard.

A group of female guests was invited to view the installation and guess which objects were created by women. The idea was to see to what extent women themselves could harbor a bias regarding the capabilities of women. People made their guesses, yet none guessed that the wardrobe was built by women.

The guests were then shown the video of the making of the wardrobe. And then, they were introduced in person to the makers - India's first women carpenters.

Data gathering:

Studies revealed that carpentry in India has no professional structure for women. While some mentions of skill-training workshops existed, these did not connect to carpentry as a paid profession.

Target Audience:

The target audience was middle class Indians across the country, who would look to build new furniture in their homes – young working men and women, couples and families.

Approach:

Association with Archana Women’s Center would allow Greenply to provide a professional project for building plywood furniture, thus taking the first major step to promote entry of women into the profession. To create awareness about this step, an activation was devised that would create a disruption in people’s minds and become shareable awareness.

The campaign played out in 2 stages. The first stage involved taking a filming unit to the town of Ettumanoor, where Archana Women’s Center is based. The unit filmed the actual process of the women carpenters building the wardrobe.

The second stage involved the activation inside the gallery, where guests were invited and filmed as they examined the installation, offered their guesses as to which objects were created by women, and were introduced to the first female carpenters in person.

The video was released on social media, and a PR event was held to introduce the media to the campaign, as well as the female carpenters themselves.

With this initiative Greenply took the first step towards creating a sustainable model for training and empowering women carpenters in association with Archana Women's Center.

The campaign generated a lot of press and media awareness on the issue. Over 1 million YouTube views and over 400,000 Facebook views underlined the reach of the video. Women celebrities and politicians shared the video, including Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu, Indian cricket captain Smriti Mandhana, youth icon Zaira Waseem, and former Police Advisor to the UN Secy General, and LT Governor of Puducherry, Kiran Bedi.

Women often harbour fixed notions about what women can do and what women can't. In India, carpentry is one of those professions where we don't even entertain the possibility of women working in it. This campaign got the nation talking about breaking the myth and overcoming the gender bias.

With this initiative Greenply took the first step towards creating a sustainable model for training and empowering women carpenters in association with Archana Women's Center.