UNDERSTANDING RRAP - an institution without walls

RRAP is an ambitious and innovative 10-yr strategy to activate the Millennium Development Goals as articulated in the Jodhpur Consensus 2005. It is a programme to expand Rajasthan’s rural economy by conserving and repositioning traditional creative assets and skills. RRAP develops a new ecosystem around Rajasthan’s remarkable legacy of traditional folk music and performing arts, offering a new way to provide rural employment and alleviate poverty in our times of climate crisis and dependence on carbon-based resources. RRAP places centre-stage Rajasthan’s still accessible wealth of human based resources -- traditional knowledge, performing arts, and legacy skills -- and develops contemporary enterprises around them to transform them to assets of modern value, and sustain them into the future.

Rajasthan is still in transition from centuries of being a feudal society to a new modern democracy. Opportunities for new ways of earning are needed particularly in rural areas. Three credible non-profit partners – Jaipur Virasat Foundation, Mehrangarh Museum Trust, and Anahad Foundation - bring their strengths to deliver RRAP as a single vehicle. To maximize impact and outcomes, RRAP engages a wide range of partner agencies and institutions with experience and knowledge of the sectors. Project Implementation is planned in broad fields – rural tourism, development of knowledge capital, integration of performance technologies, innovation, artist welfare and cross sector solidarity. Compassionate and visionary investment, expert guidance, and professional capacity building nourish new plants. A folk music school nurtures creativity, technology competences, and reaches out. A folk music museum documents, conserves and reaches out. New forms of rural tourism generate livelihoods around the music traditions of the region.

Transformed to contemporary employment resources, traditional assets and skills are conserved and naturally sustained. Local enterprise grows naturally. Powerful contemporary experiences of Rajasthan’s artistry and creative skills become a positive affirmation for local communities, an attraction for the people of India, and draw visitors from over the world. ‘Sunset practices’ transform to ‘sunrise’ professions. RRAP empowers rural communities, establishes practices to support growth of a contemporary music industry, and celebrates the frugal, resilient, creative spirit of Rajasthan.