The unknown Santa Clauses

KOCHI: The imaginary workshop of Santa Clause is for real and it is here. Christmas is the season of celebration, we exchange gifts and share our joy. Here in Kochi, a group of people has made making gifts their livelihood. Every year during the Christmas season they gather and craft small gifts and deliver to the shops. A real-life Santa Clause, Pradeep P Pappachan, who is a photo-frame maker, along with some of the housewives of the area where he resides devotes one month for making small gifts to run this in-house business since the last six years.

“The thought of why don’t we make gifts ourselves instead of buying and selling gifts gave birth to this workshop,” said Pradeep, the founder of the project. He took a house for rent at Pachalam and trained some of the women in the neighbourhood and kick-started the business. 

There are currently seven people working in the crafting section “I take pride in saying I am offering the women a source of livelihood and help them stand on their own feet instead of depending on anyone. Training is given in such a way that they become capable of starting a business on their own if given an opportunity,” he said. These women get R350 on a daily basis. In the other months where there is no gift crafting, they help in the work of photo frames.

Now he delivers over fifty types of self-crafted gifts to the stores on a wholesale basis. He purchases materials for the production from cities like Mumbai and Chennai and also from countries like China. “The production cost of a gift is around R32 and we keep our profit margins low,” said Anitha Joy, a co-worker.

They deliver gifts ranging from R15 to R100 and work mainly on small gifts which are usually exchanged in schools during Christmas time. “We have plans to expand this small business into an outlet in the future,” said Mary Joy, another co-worker. The most popular gift items during the Christmas season are small motifs of infant Jesus and small Christmas trees which are beautifully decorated and boxed.

“We don’t have these many orders for small gifts at any other time of the year,” said Suni Anthony, a trainee. “School children and kids are our main customers and they are our main advertisers too,” she added. Pradeep’s products are popular among the kids and the schools in the area. These Santa clauses are planning to continue their work in the following years and bring more joy to the world every year.