The story of GRAMA happened in Poochackal, a sleepy village near Alappuzha, Kerala where we live.
It all started in 2007 when the farming activity in our village slowed down. Fair price for produce, pest attacks and increasing wages paved the way to this slowdown. This added up to the misery of common man. Our village and the working community have contributed a lot to our family since we owned a farm. We no longer have regular work in the farm. But we wanted to “give back” what we got from the community.
After considering lot of projects, we hit upon the idea of introducing GRAMA range of earth friendly products through which we wanted to provide better living conditions at least for few families.
Now project GRAMA has emerged as a bread earner, not only for families in our village, but also for many more families.
In the year 2008, we decided that the primary beneficiaries of the project through direct or indirect employment should be women since they are the pillar of the household. Since then, we were able to support a good number of families through direct employment and Women SHGs
GRAMA is a project initiated by Earthcare , a locally-run, enterprise that works to support the village community through initiatives in crafts, natural products and tourism and is being run by us, Seema Soby Kurian & Soby Jose Kurian , both of us are passionate about the heritage we have, the village we live, the cause we support, the nature we inhabit and the things we do.
Better Living products
All our products are crafted in villages. Some of them are produced in our village while some others are sourced from other similar organizations/ individuals/ Women SHGs across the state.
We support rural community by producing & marketing village/ hand crafted products and thereby
- Produce and sell earth friendly products to create better living in our planet
- Empowerment of women and small businesses for creating sustainable livelihoods
- Community give backs to reduce inequalities and promote economic growth of villages by promoting village crafted products
- Provide safe working conditions, pay fair wages and create awareness of better lifestyle
These can also destem at the same time. However, in larger wineries, a mechanical crusher/destemmer is used. The decision about destemming is different for red and white wine making. Generally when making white wine the fruit is only crushed, the stems are then placed in the press with the berries. The presence of stems in the mix facilitates pressing by allowing juice to flow past flattened skins. These accumulate at the edge of the press.
Katerina Monroe
@katerinam • More Posts by Katerina
Congratulations on the award, it's well deserved! You guys definitely know what you're doing. Looking forward to my next visit to the winery!