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: Ann Creevey, Picture by : Nathan Dexter. |
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In Prey
Kabash District, Takeo Province, the cavernous space
under nearly every house shelters a loom, and silk
threads of every color hang in skeins outside.
Takeo was once a silk weaving center of Cambodia,
in the days before the war when mulberry trees,
the natural food of the silk worm, grew plentifully
and the daughters of every family learnt the ancient
trade from their mothers, and their mother's mothers,
according to locals.
"I am 83 years old now. Perhaps I am the oldest
weaver here, and I remember my mother teaching me
the secrets of the patterns all those years ago,"
Thon Yeav said.
But under the Pol Pot regime there was no call for
the fine cloths that Cambodia had been famous for
throughout the world. Weaving was banned, many of
the master weavers died, and secrets were lost.
After the war, too, the economics of the country
changed and gradually more and more people from
this region have been forced to go to the city to
look for work to support their farming families.
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A young girl concentrates
on weaving the silk cloth Takeo is famous
for as part of the VCAO program
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That often includes
the daughters who would once have stayed at home and supplemented
family income by creating the intricate patterns that
become sampots (skirts) and sarongs.
"When they go to the city, they hope to find work
in garment factories, but sometimes, there is no work,
or they end up working as beer girls, in karaoke parlors
or even prostitutes. Whatever happens, they are a long
way from their families," said Mr Chea Pyden, Director
of the Vulnerable Children Assistance Organization (VCAO).
VCAO was set up in June, 1994 by professionals, individuals
and consultants who wanted to make a difference to the
lives of young people in vulnerable situations, Mr Pyden
said.
And in Takeo, where the weaving tradition is still struggling
to regain its former strength and master weavers are in
short supply despite the number of looms in evidence in
the area, VCAO hit upon the perfect solution, both to
the problem of children migrating away from their homes,
and of reviving that culture.
The Silk Weaving Training Project for Poor Young Girls
was born, sustained by a small budget supplemented by
Echo and Save the Children (UK). Recently, the NGO Friends
has also leant a hand. |
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The loom set up for weaving
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Experienced
local weavers agreed to work as teachers for small
salaries. Looms were brought in and lined up in
rows under a traditional wooden house. Then VCAO
workers selected 20 girls from Takeo Province who
were deemed at risk from trafficking or exploitation
to stay in their native province and learn the trade.
VCAO has a range of projects in operation in cooperation
with various complimentary NGOs, from setting up
peer group support groups to providing libraries,
non-formal education programs for groups like child
domestic workers and children who live by scavenging
the Phnom Penh garbage dump and scholarship funding
for underprivileged women and children.
Because of the number of girls migrating to the
city from Takeo, and the levels of poverty in several
districts in the province, VCAO decided small-scale
skills training in weaving, the traditional mainstay
of the area before the war, was the best option.
"Girls in the countryside usually don't finish
school. They have little education and when they
go to the city and leave their families behind,
they are very vulnerable. Teaching this skill allows
them to |
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stay here and
earn a good living to help their family," Mr Pyden
said.
"The girls we selected were between 14 and 17 years
old. They were all school dropouts and their families
had no skills to teach them. They had no jobs and were
often the children of widows. Some were at risk. Some
had already returned from the city."
That was nearly six years ago. Today, the eight month
course has been completed by 100 girls who have returned
to their families better able to supplement their income
and free from the pressure to travel to Phnom Penh to
find unskilled, low paid and sometimes dangerous work.
And for each girl trained at the center, many more at
village and family level will be able to watch and work
with her and in turn learn those new skills without ever
directly entering the program.
"On average, one piece of silk (called a kben) will
sell for $30 to $35. Each one takes about a week to weave,
so you see, they can support their families very comfortably
with this work," Mr Pyden said.
"We identify the markets for them and make sure they
can sell their product on. Once they have finished the
training, we extend micro credit loans so they can buy
their own equipment and set themselves up. Most of the
product goes to Takeo before being sold on to wholesalers
from the city."
Not satisfied with just teaching weaving, the older Khmer
masters began to teach the girls traditional methods of
dying the threads, enabling them to find the ingredients
for the rich blues, yellows and reds of the traditional
sampot from their local environment more cheaply than
they could buy environmentally unfriendly and expensive
chemical dyes.
"For blue, we take red dye from this resin found
on certain types of trees, called sramar, and mix it with
tamarind leaves," a supervisor at the Trapaing Tear
village explains.
"Yellow comes from the bark of the phohut (combogia
guttai) tree this tree which produces a sour fruit. We
mix a kilo and a half of it with a couple of hundred grams
of rose apple nut and four liters of sangker potash and
have enough for one kben.
"Green comes from the leaves of the indigo plant.
We use limestone, palm sugar and sangker potash as a catalyst.
The main ingredients grow all around here. It is simple
when you know how to do it."
The richly colored threads are the basis of silk cloth
which will reach the tourist markets of Phnom Penh, and,
from there, countries all over the world.
"Now only our silks have to go to Phnom Penh. The
weavers can stay here in their own villages. They have
that option," Mr Pyden said. |
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Suite
B8, Regency Square, InterContinental Hotel, 294 Mao Tse Toung
Boulevard,
Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia.
Tel: (855) 23 213 133 Fax: (855) 23 213 033
E-mail:
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