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Weaving sustainable textiles in Thailand 04/11/2010 - By Ellen Agger

A member and president of Prae Pan Group hang freshly dyed silk yarns to dry

Join TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles' co-founder Ellen Agger as she visits one of Thailand's oldest women's weaving co-ops. Learn more about how they create beautiful cloth by hand and how they are preserving their culture and traditions.









 


As we drive into Nawn Thoong village in
Thailand’s northeast province of Khon Kaen, Pii Yai is excited. She has served
for many years on the board of directors of Prae Pan Group, a women’s weaving
co-operative in Thailand’s northeast, whose staff set up our visits today to
three villages where members live and work.



 


We gather across the street at the house of
Mae Pit, a long-time Prae Pan member. She and the four other members sit on a
mat next to the house, protected from the glaring sun. They’re in their late
50s. These are the silk weavers in the village. Like most of Prae Pan’s
members, they are farmers who fit weaving around their farming chores and care
for their children, grandchildren and elders. Weaving brings in much needed
additional income, used to send their children to trade school or university,
for health care and to improve their lives in the village.



 


By belonging to the co-op they are paid for
their work as soon as they deliver it to the group’s shop in Khon Kaen city.
Members are proud that the co-op owns this shop, reflecting the group’s goal of
being self-sufficient.



 


Co-op membership gives members the chance
to work with customers like TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles which pays 50% in
advance for orders. “On our annual visits with groups like Prae Pan, we deepen
our relationships,” says TAMMACHAT co-founder Alleson Kase. “This year we are
learning more about the group’s capacity to weave organic, naturally dyed silk
fabric for the growing eco-textile market. We have also started to collaborate
on designing bags for the North American market.”



 


Co-op membership has also given members a
market for their weaving well beyond what they would otherwise be able to reach
as individuals. They are keen to learn more about the markets in our country,
as they don’t often have the chance to meet directly with foreign customers of
the co-op.



 


We ask the women gathered today if they are
passing on their skills, learned from their mothers. Now their daughters are
going off to earn their livings in the cities or on to further schooling. These
skills are at risk of being lost, we’re told again and again on visits like
these.



 


Sometimes younger women do return to their
village when their children are small, preferring a quieter life where they
have family support networks. “When I was young,” says one of the women, “I
went away to work in a factory. Then I came back to my village. At home, you’re
free. I can farm and I’m happier.”



 


After choosing samples of silk yarns of
some of the colours they can produce in this village, we thank the women, jump
in Pii Yai’s truck and arrive a short time later in Nom Thoom village. We stop
at the house of Mae Nung who is feeding organic mulberry leaves to heritage
silkworms in baskets her husband has woven. She sits behind blue netting that
protects the sensitive silkworms from exposure to diseases and chemicals like
cigarette smoke. “Raising silkworms is like raising babies,” she says. The
resulting silk yarns, painstakingly reeled by hand, are produced organically,
we learn, protecting both the women’s health and their local environment.



 


We meet with 10 women, ranging in age from
mid-forties to over 70. For all the women, this work brings income to the
family. For some, it’s more. “If I don’t weave,” says Mae Som, age 49, “I
cannot sleep.” Mae Tong Luan tells us, “It’s important to me that I do the
whole cycle of production. It’s a circle.”



 


In neighbouring Suk Som Boon village, Mae
Nung practices this full circle. She grows the mulberry bushes to feed the
silkworms, hand reels and twists silk yarns, dyes them with natural dyes that
she has grown or gathered in the wild, and weaves. It’s time consuming work. It
takes 2 months to produce 12 handwoven, naturally dyed silk scarves, 3 months
to produce 40 metres of organic silk fabric.



 


We watch as Mae Pan cuts the reddish green
leaves of “maak yao.” She has a new recipe to create a luminescent green. She
dips the silk yarns in the simmering dye bath twice, then gets help from Mae
Pet, the president of Prae Pan, to straighten the fine yarns and then they hang
them to dry.



 


Preserving these traditional skills – and
bringing income to women in Thailand and Laos’s rural areas – is what’s behind
TAMMACHAT’s work. “Fair trade is about much more than paying fairly for the
work,” says Alleson. “It’s about respecting the people who do the work,
learning from each other and supporting sustainable practices. It makes a real
difference in the lives of these women,” she adds.



 


 “Our weavers are very proud when they can weave cloth
beautiful enough to attract customers,” Mae Pet tells us. And well they should
be.



 


For more info, visit:


TAMMACHAT Natural
Textiles -- www.tammachat.com


Prae Pan Group -- praepangroup.wordpress.com

 







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