The Georgian Heritage Crafts Association (GHCA), established in 2015 is a networking platform for individuals, craftspeople and organizations, mobilizing and supporting craft practitioners at the grassroots level to assist practitioners to safeguard their heritage and support their livelihoods. Georgian Heritage Crafts Association aims to overcome the existing challenges through the creation of a networking platform for individuals, craftspeople, organizations and guilds, which care about the loss of traditional crafts skills.
GHCA has engaged in various activities to such as:
- Undertaking research, inventorying and documentation identifying endangered heritage crafts for revitalization and assessing the needs of practitioners;
- Creating new opportunities for transmission of craft-related skills by craft practitioners through formal and non-formal education;
- Providing capacity building and marketing support: GHCA supported new product development (local heritage and nature inspired collections and new market oriented functional categories) as well as branding and packaging of products. New products have been marketed through different thematic fairs and a GHCA brand store “EthnoDesign”,
- Organizing publications, awards, festivals and events raising public awareness about, and appreciation of, Georgian heritage crafts nationally and internationally. GHCA also supports development of crafts services (masterclasses and demonstrations) for visitors, promotional campaigns through the physical and online festivals, creation of Crafts Workshop guidebooks.
The GHCA has more than 300 members across Georgia.
Organization Link: https://crafts.ge/