Safeefah Notebook

Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council engages with women artisans across the UAE, Middle East, North Africa, and South and Southeast Asia regions to empower them economically and socially through vocational training and upskilling programmes٬ ensuring the preservation of Indigenous craft heritage. A hub of global crafts collaborations, Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council ensures the modernization of traditional crafts and creates new market opportunities for local craftswomen by partnering them with international designers and artists, merging Emirati crafts and artisanal techniques with cutting-edge design and innovation to produce Emirati-crafted products reflective of culture today. Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council seeks to create a valued women-artisan economy by creating a sustainable market in which re-contextualized traditional crafts and crafted products exist. A platform that preserves and protects the heritage and legacy of crafts٬ Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council ensures documentation of tangible and intangible craft heritage and creates publications that serve as a reference to a culture that relies heavily on storytelling. Its latest efforts have led to Sharjah’s recognition as a city of Crafts and Folk Art for the craft of Talli in 2019 by UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network.