http://www.guide2.co.nz
Thursday, 30 April 2009
By Maggie Tait of NZPA
Wellington, April 30 NZPA - New Zealand is helping Cambodian women weave more money into tight budgets through a programme designed to boost the silk industry.
NZAid backs, with other funders, the Cambodian Sector-Wide Silk Project. It provided a $NZ559,000 grant between 2007 and 2009.
During a visit weavers showed NZPA the painstaking process of threading silk onto frames, dying it and weaving it into fabric.
They are relearning skills and building an industry demolished under the Khmer Rouge regime which was ousted from power in 1979. The ultra-communist regime saw 1.7 million Cambodians die of starvation, disease and overwork, and among casualties was the silk industry. Looms were destroyed and mulberry plants that silk worms live on cut down.
Under the programme plantations are growing but only 2 percent of raw silk is local with the bulk imported from China and Vietnam.
Groups of women -- about 30 groups ranging in numbers across 20 villages -- work together hand processing the silk as a collective which gives them better market access and helps to drop middlemen so they can retain more profits.
"It's a source of income for the family," Pan Mom, a 45-year-old mother of two says through a translator.
The main occupation is growing rice but money from silk pays for everything from school books to fertiliser, she said.
About 30 percent of Cambodia's people live below the poverty line.
* Maggie Tait travelled to Cambodia with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
By Maggie Tait of NZPA
Wellington, April 30 NZPA - New Zealand is helping Cambodian women weave more money into tight budgets through a programme designed to boost the silk industry.
NZAid backs, with other funders, the Cambodian Sector-Wide Silk Project. It provided a $NZ559,000 grant between 2007 and 2009.
During a visit weavers showed NZPA the painstaking process of threading silk onto frames, dying it and weaving it into fabric.
They are relearning skills and building an industry demolished under the Khmer Rouge regime which was ousted from power in 1979. The ultra-communist regime saw 1.7 million Cambodians die of starvation, disease and overwork, and among casualties was the silk industry. Looms were destroyed and mulberry plants that silk worms live on cut down.
Under the programme plantations are growing but only 2 percent of raw silk is local with the bulk imported from China and Vietnam.
Groups of women -- about 30 groups ranging in numbers across 20 villages -- work together hand processing the silk as a collective which gives them better market access and helps to drop middlemen so they can retain more profits.
"It's a source of income for the family," Pan Mom, a 45-year-old mother of two says through a translator.
The main occupation is growing rice but money from silk pays for everything from school books to fertiliser, she said.
About 30 percent of Cambodia's people live below the poverty line.
* Maggie Tait travelled to Cambodia with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
1 comment:
Hello Maggie,
I really enjoy your blog.
I'm conducting feminist research on how American foreign policy affects popular support for terrorism. I’m particularly interested in incorporating the views of women, non-whites, and people living outside of America and Western Europe, but all responses are invited and welcome. The survey can be accessed at
http://www.johnmaszka.com/SURVEY.html
I would really value your opinion and the opinion of your readers.
Thank you,
John Maszka
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