Banglanatak: developing cultural industries and creative enterprise and facilitating cultural exchange to promote diversity

Banglanatak dot com is a social enterprise working across india with a mission to foster inclusive and sustainable development using culture-based approaches. it works for the protection of rights of women, children and indigenous people. the organization is working towards facilitating cultural exchange to promote diversity through a variety of initiatives. the 'musical' initiative supports youth with skills and resources in developing career and business opportunities in music industry. its aim is to enable the young people unlock the potential of their creative talents and access the options that complement their aspirations. through this, banglanatak organizes international music residencies resulting in co-production and cultural exchange and has hosted 20+ residencies in last 5 years with artists from denmark, sweden, israel, portugal, hungary, switzerland, north ireland, and usa. they have also published 25 music albums and launched a mobile app for promotion of their music. their flagship world peace music festival ‘sur jahan’ has provided platforms to heritage bearers of india and abroad since 2011. 50 teams from 32 countries have participated at sur jahan in past 10 years leading to participation of young artists from india in festivals abroad. the organization is also promoting entrepreneurship as a social movement and nurturing young cultural entrepreneurs including cultural tourism businesses (toureast.in, rajasthansafar.com). they are also working to develop an enabling eco-system for cultural enterprise and cultural tourism. they work with young people from india, nepal, bangladesh and usa to build capacity of young cultural professionals in use of digital and cultural tools to promote pluralism and peace. their toureast division promotes cultural tourism and has developed 18 village festivals celebrating art and culture and these have evolved as effective catalysts in strengthening cultural tourism in the state. the organization started this in west bengal and now are also implementing the same in rajasthan.