The public foundation "CACSARC-kg" was created on the basis of the Central Asian Association for the Support of Crafts (CACSA) - one of the leading non-governmental organizations in the region with an open membership, working in the field of development of the handicraft sector, whose head office was in Bishkek from 2000 to 2008.\nAt its creation, CACSA consisted of several enthusiasts of the region's craft movement, and by 2009, over eight years, CACSA had created a regional network of 76 organizations (from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia) and implemented more than 50 projects in the field the development and support of crafts, where more than 5,000 artisans across the region have directly and indirectly benefited. During these eight years, CACSA has gained significant experience in the development of the artisan sector of the region, providing artisans with training, marketing and international promotion services.\nAt the end of 2008, the head office of CACSA, according to its Charter, moved to Almaty (Kazakhstan), and in March 2009 “CACSARC-kg” was registered as an independent public fund to continue activities in Kyrgyzstan for the development of crafts and traditional culture.

Turquoise Mountain was founded in 2006 by HRH The Prince of Wales to revive historic areas and traditional crafts, to provide jobs, skills and a renewed sense of pride. Since 2006, Turquoise Mountain has restored over 150 historic buildings, trained over 6,000 artisans, treated almost 136,000 patients at our Kabul clinic, and supported and generated over $15.5 million in sales of traditional crafts to international clients, including Kate Spade and London’s Connaught Hotel. Turquoise Mountain has also curated major international exhibitions at museums around the world, from the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. Turquoise Mountain has now built over 50 small businesses in Afghanistan, Myanmar, and the Middle East, supporting a new generation of artisan entrepreneurs who will not only drive economic development, but also preserve their unique cultures and traditions.

Kalamandir Saksham SHG Federation is run by artisans and is a registered society. It has been promoted to market and sale artifacts, paintings etc through a unique showroom at heart of the city of Jamshedpur. It is a place where every tourist, educationist and corporate executives visit. It is a self sustained enterprise being run since 2007 under the guidance of 117 active artisan members. Kalamandir is an organisation that believes in preserving and restoring tribal art and culture. Kalamandir is engaged in nurturing a sense of aesthetics about tribal art among individuals, communities, organisations and social groups. The target groups of Kalamandir are tribal artisans/ artists/ women and youth. All these groups are deprived and have no voice or any kind of social or political platform. The multi-cultural, multi-lingual vibrancy of tribal communities residing in the state of Jharkhand is being eroded due to mining, deforestation, lack of political will, corruption and administrative apathy.\nKalamandir operates with a vision to foster necessity and accessibility of arts and aesthetics in our day to day social life. We are engaged in constantly supporting, nurturing and disseminating the finer aesthetic sense among individuals, communities, organisation s and social groups. Countering the mono culture, we look for a creative, dynamic and diversified environment for the young minds among tribes and non-tribes of Jharkhand - who are full of finer senses.

AIACA, a nationwide network of handicraft and handloom clusters, directly addresses the need to empower traditional artisan clusters across India through professionalization of their craft based skills for sustainable enterprise development. AIACA specializes in sustainable craft based livelihood initiatives through skill development, design innovation and product diversification, entrepreneurship development, direct market access, access to social entitlements and schemes and policy advocacy. AIACA has a unique national certification proramme, Craftmark (www.craftmark.org), that certifies and improves the economic competitiveness of genuine handmade craft processes and products of India and brings under its fold, artisans, SHGs, cooperatives, associations, social enterprises, and individual practitioners to gain from its business development and promotional services thus creating dignity and pride in the practice of traditional crafts in the long run. AIACA has over 75 Craftmark members (outreach of over 20,000 artisans across 22 states of India) and has documented over 80 traditional craft processes practiced in the country.

To provide artisans with the opportunity to realize their creative capacity, and to insure that craft traditions remained genuine cultural heritage, Judy Frater began a design education program for artisans in Kutch. In 2005, Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya opened its doors to artisan students: traditional weavers, ajrakh printers, bandhani artists, and embroiderers, with no further prerequisites of age or formal education.\nIn 2014, the year-long program evolved and expanded to Somaiya Kala Vidya. In six two-week intensive residential sessions spread over a year, artisan students learn to innovate within their traditions. nThe most innovative tool that we use in our design classes is simply to present problems to solve. We also draw on local traditions and teach as practically as possible. In effect, the design course re-imagines traditional systems in an appropriate contemporary form. Master artisan advisors teach students about traditions, as children once learned from elders; weavers, printers, and dyers learning together revitalizes the inherent interdependence in traditional textiles; and interface with urban markets reinvents direct contact with hereditary clients.\nAfter design education for artisans in Kutch reached its goals, Somaiya Kala Vidya is scaling out their approach to other regions. Keeping cultural heritage as the foundation, they intend to teach design within regions, drawing on local language and culture.