Rashmi Bharti has been working in the field of rural development in Uttarakhand and Orissa, India, for the past 33 years. She has worked in the field of alternative education, community health, renewable energy, natural resource management, strategic planning, fund raising and creation of sustainable livelihoods in remote rural areas through revival of traditional craft.

 

Rashmi Bharti and her husband, Rajnish Jain moved to the Himalayas in 1991 to live and work with rural communities and in 1999 they founded Avani in Tripuradevi, a small village in Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand. Avani has been working in the creation of livelihood opportunities through development and dissemination of appropriate technology, revival and preservation of traditional handloom skills and conservation of biodiversity and natural resources. It works in 108 villages and hamlets reaching more than 20,000 people, till today.

 

She pioneered the cultivation and extraction of indigo pigment and has demystified the science behind natural dye cultivation, processing and application. It took many years to train a group of rural youth who have now become the master trainers in natural dyeing of textiles. They have also been taught to make extracts and pigments. A group of rural scientists are now providing training to other rural youth across the country to grow, process and colour with natural dyes.