San Tad - Silk Scarf Producers

This village of three hundred families lies just outside Chiang Saen, near the Mekong River in northeast Thailand. Unlike some of the silk villages in the region, San Tad farms its own silk worms, which includes cultivating mulberries for worm-feed, hand-harvesting the silk, and meticulously cleaning its sticky threads. Some of this work is government-supported as part of an eco-tourism homestay project, but so far, the initiative has generated very little additional revenue.

As the San Tad economy relies heavily on its surrounding rice fields, only eight women can afford to work the looms full-time (often because they are also financially supported by their children). A good day’s work is less than a meter of woven silk. While each worker has her own costs and her own profits, each contributes to a group fund that pays for broken looms and other communal materials. Wansri (pictured right), the current head of this weaving cooperative, started the silkworm farm with her husband. When her daughter was in school, she says, the silk worms managed to produce just enough silk each month to support the next month’s schooling. Her daughter and son are now working as a teacher and a policeman, respectively, thanks in large part to the efforts of these industrious creatures.

Tha Thong - Hmong Patterns used in Eyemasks, Wine Carrier, Yoga Mat Bags, Shopping bags

This quiet community of thatched-roof houses and lush bamboo groves is home to two hundred Hmong families. About 100 Tha Thong women produce traditional Hmong embroidery, but the majority of villagers earn a living on the rice fields – an increasingly difficult occupation, as agricultural efforts run up against the region’s hilly topography as well as the village’s growing population. Though half of the villagers were born in Thailand or have lived in the country long enough to become Thai citizens, the rest remain refugees, limited to life in the village without access to public education and other benefits of citizenship.

Pimpa, head of the small group that embroiders for Izara Arts, is a mother of six and a daughter of five. Her parents fled China before she was born. After finishing high school at nineteen, she immediately set to work raising money for her sisters to attend university. Now, she struggles to pay ten thousand baht a semester for her oldest daughter to attend boarding school in Chiang Mai (the local school doesn’t exceed grade six) and hopes to be able to provide this kind of education for all of her children.

Anantara Elephant Camp - Izadora Silk Scarf

The Anantara Golden Triangle Resort and Spa, in partnership with the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation and the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, provides a haven for overworked, abused elephants and the mahouts who rely on these animals for their livelihood. Twenty mahout families now live in the Anantara Elephant Camp (a dusty strip of bamboo thatch huts and fields where tourists can learn to drive and bathe the gentle beasts) in exchange for a small stipend and housing. To earn a little extra income, a handful of the mahouts’ wives weave silk scarves. Although the money the mahouts receive in exchange for the use of their elephants is less than what they were earning on the streets of Bangkok, it’s far more comfortable at the camp, the wives say.

They hope that the few thousand baht a month they earn through silk sales will help to further their own and their children’s education - three out of the four women who currently weave for Izara Arts never completed primary school. (To learn more about the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, visit www.helpingelephants.org/home.html)

Khun Yoong - Burmese Sequinned Embroidery (WorldTote Bag)

Khun Yoong is a small, sweet-faced Burmese woman who lives in a village near Mae Sai called Padang. She is HIV-positive. Because the symptoms of the disease leave her unable to continue construction and field labor, she ekes out a living through her extraordinary talent for sequin and beadwork. Before being introduced to Izara Arts, she was being paid a mere 80 to 130 baht apiece – between two and four U.S. dollars – for intricately beaded dresses that took her four or five days to complete.

Kuhn Yoong moved from Burma to Thailand fifteen years ago with her mother, two small daughters, and Thai husband. After a divorce she relocated to Bangkok, where she worked as a masseuse and met her second husband, who helped support the family temporarily but abruptly left the country and cut off contact. Since then, Kuhn Yoong has been drifting from job to job, often working strenuous, menial labor for long hours. She was forced to sell her sewing machine five years ago in order to afford the doctor who informed her of her HIV diagnosis.

Happily, neither of her children is infected. Her younger daughter lives with her sister in a neighboring village, and her older daughter lives with her in Padang, where she attends the local high school and hopes to find a scholarship so she can continue her education after Grade 9.

Rong Wai - Bolero and Skinny Silk scarves

The 400 families in the village of Rong Wai are all from Isan, a particularly impoverished and drought-prone region in northeastern Thailand whose people speak a hybrid local dialect that resembles Laotian. Of the fifty women in Rong Wai who work with silk, fifteen weave scarves using the tri-colored “skinny” technique for Izara Arts. The women buy silk from a neighboring village that farms silk worms, and once the thread is dyed and the loom is strung, each woman can weave about two scarves per day.

Khun Nong, who coordinates the group’s work and specializes in dyeing the threads, says that weaving has become something that only older women do – in part because younger family members are needed in the fields, but also because the younger generation doesn’t appear interested in this ancient and intricate art. Khun Nong lives with her aging mother, and is happy to report that her two children have both been able to attend university – her daughter is now working in Bangkok, and her son is a soldier.

Huay Chant Lod - Wine Carrier and WorldTote

Huay Chant Lod is home to eighty families of Mien, an ethnic minority that originally emigrated from China. The majority of the remaining Mien population in Thailand lives either in Huay Chan Lod or in a neighboring village of just two hundred families. Mien women are known for the incredibly fine detail of their colorful, embroidered costumes – often, it will take a woman six months to sew a single pant leg. Thirty women in Huay Chant Lod are skilled in traditional Mien handicrafts, fifteen of whom work on Izara Arts projects. Mali, who moved to this village when she was five years old, heads the group’s efforts. If there is a large order, the women can stop work in the fields to concentrate on sewing; otherwise, agriculture is their primary source of income. The Mien grow maize for sale as animal feed as well as rice for their own consumption.

Mali’s group of women is entirely cooperative: They work on the orders, divide the costs of the materials, and share all profits equally.

Thai Chairon - Wine Carrier, Yoga Mat Carrier, Eyemasks, WorldTote

A primarily “white Hmong” village (differentiated from other Hmong subgroups only by dialect), Thai Chairon boasts thirty seven women who do traditional Hmong embroidery, but just eight who are skilled in clothwork. Mai, leader of the eight who sew for Izara Arts, has lived in Thai Chairon for 26 years. She and her family originally farmed the hills between Thailand and Laos – primarily, she says, because the flatlands, much better for agricultural production, were already owned and farmed. Her husband’s father founded the village of Thai Chairon thirty years ago after fleeing Hmong refugee camps in Laos, where his family had waited fruitlessly for an American visa.

As with many other villages in northern Thailand, the women of Thai Chairon can only abandon agricultural production if they receive a large order for their handicraft – otherwise, sewing takes place in the evenings.

Mai has four children, one son and three daughters. Her son is hoping for a scholarship to study in the United States.

Huay Khom - woven straps for all the bags and eyemasks, Pure Art project

Akha Craft - prototypes and finishing of most products

Ruth and Chuck Fox have been working with this group of Akha village women for over 7 years and they provide us with the skilled finish of our products. When they arrived in the area, they realized that the villagers needed steady work to improve their lives so they bought sewing machines and started the long process of training unskilled workers to produce factory quality items. Most of their products are sold to their colleagues and associates in the USA

Mirror Foundation - Bird Whistle Necklaces

The Mirror Art Foundation works in the same area as Izara Arts, providing a link between urban Thais and rural hilltribes through volunteer experiences. We have often collaborated as we develop our craft producers and markets. Their handicrafts are sold through their website at www.ebannok.com. Read more about their group at www.mirrorartgroup.org.

Buzu - Akha Wine Carrier Panels, Yoga Mat Bags

Buzu is an Akha woman living in Baan Doi, a Thai village close to Chiang Rai. She is 43 years old. She has 2 daughters and 1 son. One daughter is working, one is studying in Grade 1 and her son is starting school this term. Her birth place is PhaLa in the mountains north of Chiang Rai. She moved from PhaLa to Baan Doi about 10 years ago. When her new baby was a few months old, she separated from her husband when he took a mia noi (a new, usually younger unofficial wife/mistress). This is accepted behaviour in Thailand but seldom turns out well for either woman. In modern times, more women are refusing the arrangement and will leave. Before she moved, Buzu worked as a farmer. In Baan Doi she was a day laborer until she had to stop work and take care of her baby. Now her family is supported from the income of her oldest daughter.

Historically, it is the duty of the eldest daughter to take care of any family dependents so they are always at risk when money gets tight. It is easy for girls to fall prey to traffickers and there is no shame to working as a prostitute if it means the family is supported.

Izara Arts met Buzu when we needed a trainer to re-introduce the Akha appliqué technique for some of our products. We hope that steady orders will produce enough income to allow her to support her dependent children and take away the pressure on her older daughter.

Phu Kor – Wine Carrier, Akha Yoga Mat bag, WorldTote

The Phu Khor women approached Khom Loy Development Foundation in 2003 and asked for help selling their handicrafts. We realized that the traditional products of the hilltribe communities, although beautiful, are considered too “ethnic” to sell in Western Markets without some design input so we focused first on creating “crossover” products. Now we go to these experienced artisans to produce our prototypes because of their understanding, interpretation and confidence. Adtaw Mayeur runs the general store in the village and like most of the resident women, any extra time she has is spent working on handicrafts to earn extra cash. She values education and wants to earn money to send her children to school. Her eldest is over 800 kilometres away at a school near Bangkok, staying with a well-off relative. If Adtaw can earn the money, she will bring her child back to a local school so she can see more of him.

Women often have to go to other provinces or big cities like Bangkok to find work in factories because of a lack of local income opportunities. Their children board with a relative or a neighbour in the village. She can only make handicrafts during daylight hours because her house has no electricity. This is not uncommon within the hill tribe communities but is slowly changing. One 3”x3” panel takes 5 days to create under these conditions. Before joining Izara’s handicrafts project, she would try and sell to passing tourists. These sales are seasonal and sporadic.

Adtew’s husband works as an officer for the forestry dept (the only local employer) so the family income is 7,000 baht ($315) per month. Working for the handicraft project would allow her to realise her dream of sending her children to college. Adtew wants them to have good jobs once they grow up, something she never got the chance to do herself.