Starter Kit. Idea 22 of 500. Cluster 2
Kite-making on the beach: build a Sri Lankan kite in the morning and fly it at sunset
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Find a kite maker who still builds kites by hand from paper, sticks and string, and agree a fee for teaching one morning. Ask a beach guesthouse to offer a trial session to its guests: build a kite in the morning, fly it at sunset. Charge a trial price per family. Six families who pay, and a guest who asks to take a second kite home, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A family staying at a beach guesthouse who want something to do together that their children will remember.
- What leaves today
- Visitors buy a toy kite or nothing at all; a kite they made themselves is a day on the beach and a souvenir with a story.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a kite-making session on the beach must register as a tourist service.
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether a class on the public beach needs permission, and which stretch suits it.
Check before you spend
Confirm permission to use the beach, that the string and the flying area are safe for children and passers-by, and insurance for every guest.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a family pay for a morning of kite-making?
- What do paper, sticks and string cost for one kite?
- Which months bring a steady evening wind on this beach?
A comparison from the book
The list. Chapter Fourteen
"experiences rather than sights, courses rather than meals, souvenirs that are actually from here"
A kite made and flown on the beach is an experience and a souvenir in one.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.