Youths trained on Monpas’ traditional way of making paper

GUWAHATI: The Monpa tribe of Arunachal Pradesh is known for the traditional art of handmade papers since time immemorial, the paper is prepared from bark of a plant called Daphne Papyracea or Shugu sheng in local dialect, but this traditional art is slowly dying with passage of time.

Therefore, to keep this traditional way of paper making continue, a 30 days skill development training programme concluded on Tuesday at Langaiteng (Shakang Rong) Mogto Circle.

The training under BADP 2018-19 was inaugurated on March 6, 2019, organised by YUVA Arunachal (an NGO) under supervision of District Industries Centre (DIC) Tawang. Since a few people of Mogto village are still continuing this tradition as family business, 60 unemployed youths 30 each from Bongkhar and Mogto circle were selected for the training. Two master trainers and two assistant trainers trained these selected youths. However, due to declaration of general elections the training was stopped for few days and resumed after the polls.

Speaking on the closing day of training, District Planning Officer (DPO) Tawang, Sangha Babung and Assistant Director of Industries (ADI) Tawang, Tsering Drema said to the trainees that, it will be little difficult for all of you to start your business in the beginning, but you shouldn’t be demoralised and keep going from door to door selling your local papers and tell the people about the benefits of these local handmade papers, popularise it you will definitely succeed.

All the trainees were given certificates for successful completion and attending training by DPO Tawang, Sangha Babung and ADI, Tsering Drema.