High standards in production of handicrafts

Belgrade, September 29 – The official ceremony of awarding licenses to the workshops for production of handicrafts in Veliko Gradiste, Kladovo, Negotin, Boljevac and Soko Banja, was held today, to complete the project entitled “Licensing standards for employment in rural areas”, implemented by the Ethno Network, and supported by the German organization for international Cooperation GIZ / KWD.

The ceremony was held in the Ministry of Economics and Regional Development in Belgrade, and the licenses were awarded by Deputy minister Renata Pindžo, who claimed the project is very important because of self-employment of women and young people in rural areas and creating conditions for their economic empowerment.

- The project must be completed with placing handicrafts to the market – said the expert’s coordinator of Ethno Network Sofija Arsic, and added that the organization opened its first shop at the Belgrade airport “Nikola Tesla”, in order to \'feel the pulse\' of customers, and improve its offer.

This project was supported by the German organization for international cooperation GIZ, whose representative Alexander Grunauer emphasized the economic significance of self-employment and job creation at the time when 300,000 people in Serbia lost their jobs in the last decade.

The project lasted nine months and it means the introduction of standards into production of handicrafts and education in the field of traditional crafts – weaving, felting, embroidery and gold embroidery, knitting, fillet lace making and pottery. Education in the field of traditional crafts included 200 women, and 30 of them (by participating in these five workshops) are now becoming educators within the licensed workshops.

Licensed workshops are now able to take part in very popular active tourism, by holding courses for tourists in various techniques, public classes, open workshops, selling thematic exhibitions. In the municipalities with higher number of citizens working abroad, du