Tsunamika
Tsunamika is a project of Upasana Design Studio in, Auroville, a garment design unit in Auroville, and mobilised in the coastal villages of Auroville’s bioregion.
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The project has the following objectives:
• Post-disaster trauma counselling
• Livelihood generation
• Women’s empowerment
• Medium for education
• Example of how ‘gift economy’ works.
Over a period of 15 years, about six million Tsunamika dolls were made and sent to over 80 countries. The Tsunamika project has been given the ‘Award of Excellence’ by the Government of India and special recognition by UNESCO. The Tsunamika doll has been selected as the mascot for 14th UN Sustainability development goal which is Save the ocean : Life below water. The project has focused on the fisherwomen who were traumatized by the Tsunami disaster. The initial aim of the project was to help the women overcome the trauma they experienced, by getting them involved in some creative handicraft work which could channel their energy in a constructive manner.
For this purpose, 480 ladies from 6 coastal villages were given handicraft training to make a small doll using left-over fabric from Upasana’s products. The project team then bought the completed dolls from the fisherwomen and began distributing them widely as gift items.
The doll, known as Tsunamika, quickly became very popular, and soon helped establish a strong emotional bond and identity among the people who had made her, as well as among those who received her. Soon the project evolved into a livelihood option for nearly 180 ladies, who began receiving income for every doll they made. At the same time, large numbers of people volunteered to distribute Tsunamika worldwide, and the entire project became a demonstration of “gift economy”.
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“The concept is to upcycle waste to hope. From a symbol of hope, Tsunamika has now transformed to be the voice of the ocean, the voice of the coastline spreading the message that oceans are not dumping places for untreated sewage water and other garbage,”
- Uma Prajapati
(founder Upasana)
Little doll was born during the tsunami and got the name Tsunamika , daughter of the ocean. Tsunamika has emerged as an Ocean Goddess, the spirit of the ocean. She, along with one million Tsunamika dolls, is on “Ocean Mission”. She speaks for children and women – two parts of our society who are most vulnerable during calamities. With Tsunamika, they stand up in this journey of the A-Clean Ocean as change makers.
After the whole research and problem statement. I wanted to make a story book and a activity book based on the story for kids aged 4 and above. The story has to be interactive but also giving knowledge about oceans and environment and give a good moral.
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So for the story I came up with few characters which are endangered species and also act as friends of Tsunamika.
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Tsunamika and the Ocean Friends
The characters of the story are
•Tsunamika
• Tini the Turtle
• Wooshy the Whale
• Greg the Gharial
• Pengu the Penguin
• Dobby the Dolphin
To view the whole book contact
Activity Book
There are 4 pages in the activity book, all the activities are in relation with the story.
1. Picking up the Garbage.
2. Bye Bye !! Plastic
3. Finding Greg
4. Save Greg
Picking up the Garbage
There are pearls hidden behind the fishes and kids get to take them out of the small maze and the pearls fall in the ocean and parents can hife them behind the pearls - this way children get to play the activity again.
Finding Greg
This activity has a forest background and there is a maze, this relates to the scene where Tsunamika goes into the forest to find Greg. Similarly, kids are trying to find Greg as Tsunamika through the maze. There is a magnetic tsunamika character that can be run under by another magnet below the swatch and be moved in the maze. And Greg will be static at the end of the maze.
Bye - Bye Plastic
This activity relates to the scene where the people are trying to remove plastic from the ocean. There are plastic pieces with metal rivet attached to them and the kids are given a fish stick in a way which has a magnet and kids remove them from the ocean, the parents can put the pieces back in the swatch and kids can play again.
Save Greg
This relates to the scene where Tsunamika is trying to save Greg from the vines. In the activity, there are lots of vines kinda structures tangled underneath them is Greg. The vines are attached with titch buttons so that they can be removed one by one and save Greg. The parents after the Greg is saved can again tangle those vines and the kids can try again to solve them. The vine that they remove should'nt be entangled with another.