In 1969 Ann left her village in Burma  to move to the Karen state. Her father was an English teacher, much needed in the Karen state, so the whole family moved, eight of them in total. In 1975 her father was taken into interrogation  by the militia as a case of mistaken identitiy. He was  beaten and killed. Her mother  who tried to explain the mistake was also killed. Ann ran to the river to escape as they burned down the house, some of her siblings witnessed the killings. Ann was 22 at the time.The family  then moved to Thoomoi area in the Karen State  where Ann studied as a nurse and got married. She then relocated  to her Wa Lu where her husband was from and they began to raise their family. In 1995 they moved to  Mae Ra Moe camp as fighting in the area made staying in the village to dangerous. Ann then went on to work for the KWO ( Karen Women’s Organisation) Income Generation Project   designing and making products and training others to sew on the rickety old treddle machines. Ann was one of the first women to work with WEFTshop on the Thai -Burma border.
She had a special taste for bags and favoured ones that are more sophisticated in design and offer her a technical challenge. She was very clever in problem solving and assembling products.

Her hope and dream for the future was to resettle in Melbourne where she has family. Sadly Ann passed away in 2010 and never realised her dream. Her family now has relocated to Australia.

Read about more of WEFTshops inspiring producers.

I am undertaking the study with SSE so that WEFTshop can become a more sustainable entity. The idea is to grow WEFTshop so the women we work with on the Thai-Burma border can realise their dreams and employ other women in need, whilst also connecting  and working with resettled community  from Burma here in Sydney.

The School for Social Entrepreneurs’ vision is to see a world powered by passionate people, creating real and tangible change throughout society and in their communities.

What is a social entrepreneur?

“Social entrepreneurs identify resources where people only see problems. They view the community as the solution, not the passive beneficiary. They begin with the assumption of competence and unleash resources in the communities they’re serving.”

David Bornstein
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.

Social entrepreneurs are everyday people with ideas or businesses that deliver a social, environmental or community benefit. They often have a personal experience of the need they are addressing and many are from the communities they seek to serve. As such they are uniquely positioned to address some of our most pressing social challenges.

I haved just finished my first three days at SSE, its wonderful to be in a room with such inspiring individuals from a variety of age groups and demographics all devoted to such inspiring projects.

I feel as if i have been reborn into the world again, having spent the last year and half at home with my wee fella.

The synapses are firing and I begin to see start up project potential everywhere! From a Burmese style “gozleme” to a selling  your own real-estate website.

At the heart of SSE is Action Learning, which is basically learning by active engagement. Action learning involves small groups meeting to talk intensively about their recent achievements and problems in a non-judgemental atmosphere. People can ask each other questions, but do not give advice. In this environment, students can be open and honest, acknowledge the personal and emotional issues that affect their project’s development, and learn from each others’ experiences.

These discussions are underpinned by training in the essential skills of fundraising, marketing and business planning, and the chance to grill expert witnesses, policy-makers, politicians and funders.

So  bring it on!

I have two luxurious days a week to work on WEFTshop in between meeting every 6 six weeks or so with my fellow classmates.

I am ticking off the growing to do list as we speak!

 Orange Grove Market on the 7th April 7:30 am-1pm. 

Join WEFTshop for these up coming market events. Stock up on gorgeous scarves for Autumn and Winter and lovely gift ideas for your family and friends. Remember Mothers Day is around the corner and you can feel good about any WEFTshop purchase knowing you are directly supporting women on the Thai-Burma border.

WorldChangers Market on Friday March 30th, 2012 at 5.30-9pm, at Wollongong Church of Christ 25 O’Brien Rd Figtree. More than 30 traders selling hundreds of Fair Trade or ethically-produced products from countries will provide a colourful and diverse market place to touch, taste and purchase items that create sustainable income for vulnerable communities in Africa, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Thailand and Cambodia, to name a few. Sporting goods, to stationery, clothing, jewellery, toys, homewares and textiles will be on offer, as well as our Fair Trade Tasting Kitchen.

If you can’t make the WorldChangers market there is an opportunity to catch WEFTshop at Orange Grove Market on the 7th April 7:30 am-1pm. Corner of Perry and Balmain rd Leichardt . A great chance to do your weekly shopping and support WEFTshop and enjoy this vibrant market atmosphere!

Click here to find out more about International Womens Day.

I chat to the women about why they decided to come on the tour. Annette Ribbons  is a lecturer of Costume at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) and is  a lover textiles and textile arts ,and also very fond of this part of the world. Hannah has come with her, last visiting Thailand when she was a two year old and was keen to come here again. Annette and Hana both participated in the WEFTshop  doll workshops in Sydney so it is great to have them here meeting more of the community WEFTshop supports.

Julia Booth is a textile artist based in the Blue Mountains and in the early stages of setting up her own creative  business .She is also a lover of  all things textiles Julia and her mother  Anna have decided that they enjoy  travelling together  and endevour to make a trip each year to a new destination . Last year Anna choose Italy so this year was Julias chioice. She has been a follower of WEFTshop for a long time and was interested in the textile and ethical angle of this tour.

On arrival  we are  met by Emma, David (tour driver), Yapa (tour interpertor ) and Ya Mi (WEFTshop artisan). Ya Mi is a  Lahu women  from Burma who makes  fabulous trims and sews colourful trimmed bags for WEFTshop.Driving into town I ask Ya Mi how she feels about teaching the group some of her traditional techniques. She says “I  am very happy because I am sharing my culture”

After settling into our rooms at  the guesthouse we head over to the venue for our workshop. When we arrive, we are greeted by WEFTshop artisan Noe Thee,   she is beautifully dressed in her traditional Chin costume.We are welcomed  with a brief background into their culture  and hear some personal stories of their journeys from Burma into Thailand. Noe thee and  Ya Mi both warm us with a speech translated by Yapa. They both relate how happy they are to have us there and to share their culture and textiles with us. They share their dreams with the group and express how much   working with Emma  has positively impacted on their lives.

Ya Mi says ” I have gotten so many benefits from this work. I learnt skills in design  and colour  matching which is very helpful to me.” By doing work with WEFTshop she has also formed friendships with the  other WEFTshop artisans Noe Thee and Mana.

Noe Thee says because she makes some income from the textile sales it helps her pay rent on her house,also”I am happy to be able to do this and also to get other women to help  do  the work and make an income.”

Then we are in for a very special treat   a lot of family arrive  dressed in traditional  Lahu costume and perform a welcome dance for us  and afterwards we all enjoy dinner together. It’s been a huge day of travelling and learning about textiles and culture. What is most memorable about the day is experiencing the warmth ,courage and generosity of Ya Mi, Nor Thee and their families.

Click here to see the 2012 WEFTshop Textile Tour Itinerary.

We were up early and eating our mango and sticky rice breakfast and by 7.30 were all loaded up into the van and setting off to visit a Thai Karen village half an hour drive from town.
It was a very picturesque drive as the sun warmed the green fields and gentle sloping hills topped with Buddhist temples.Peaked cane hats seem to float through the green of the rice fields,as we follow the aquaduct meandering towards our destination.
Cynthia is waiting for us at the village. Cynthia works with WEAVE ( Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment),and has worked with Emma on several projects.Cynthia is passionate about textiles and traditional arts and works within the refugee camps supporting women to continue with their traditional skills and earn income.She is full of beans and a great person to be around and has kindly arranged for us to this her village and attend a natural dye demonstration. We are introduced to Areeya and welcomed into her house. She is straight into it showing us samples of her lovely weaving and beginning to prepare the threads.It’s lovely and cool in the house as we sit on plastic mats and soak it all in.

Areeya first learnt to weave when she was twelve but only started earning an income from it at age twenty.She trained in natural dye ,which is a very particular skill to the Karen both from Thailand and Burma, and now teaches weaving and natural dye techniques.Traditionally the Karen would have harvested their own home grown cotton but due to relocation and space restrictions they now buy the threads.The skeins of yarn are undone and vigorously tugged to straighten the fibre and then boiled for two hours to remove the impurities.

In the garden were the family has planted a lot of forest trees for dyeing and medicinal purposes, we watch as a nifty device made of cane with a split in the top is used to twist and remove the fruit from a tree. It is a bush rambutan and the fruit opens with a squeeze of the fingers to reveal the the seeds and husk which are removed to make the dye.Once Areeya has swiftly removed all the seeds from the pods ,she adds cold water and amazingly it produces the most luminous orange dye, which gives the thread a lovely ochre yellow colour.

The tree only fruits once a year so the colour is not readily available- this is often the case with natural dye ,it is difficult to come by and labour intensive so therefore expensive to produce. The laboured results are lovely colours with natural variation and when produced in small amounts, more environmentally sustainable.

Another dye is being prepared from a tree bark. There is only one tree in the local area on a cliff! So we are lucky to have it. The preparation is more involved than for the seeds. The bark is chopped, rinsed and then boiled for two hours to acquire a rich red/brown dye.

While the dye is preparing we take a walk through the village to another house . We all really enjoy the walk and the village as it is an abundance of green fields growing produce including corn and beans . Beautiful stilted houses overlook the countryside and the soft hues and peace are a relief to the eyes and the mind after the hectic life of town. We relax on the balcony in the heat of the day and stroll around the garden. We recieve the call to return to the house as the dye is ready.
The residue bark is removed from the dye and salt is added as a mordant to fix the dye to the fibres. The washed threads are immersed in the dye and brought to the boil, the fibres are gently prodded to coax the dye to take.

Once the threads are fully laden with colour they are removed from the dye bath and hung to dry in the shaded to prevent fading. The threads are then rinsed a further two times and washed in a solution of rice flour and water, starching them to make them easier to loom.

The whole process takes most of the day and even though we have taken an observatory role, we all leave the village with a better appreciation of the process of natural dying and a great appreciation of the work involved in producing the lovely colours of Karen textiles.

Today our workshops begin in earnest. Ya Mi and Emma have prepared well for the session so  very quickly everyone is hands on.  There is a flurry of hands to colours as people choose their preferred fabrics. Yammi is teaching us to make  a textile trim called”  Hka Pa Hpui Tcuh” ,meaning  “dogs teeth” in English.  She presents a large skein of  completed trim  to inspire the group and to guide them.

"Dogs Teeth" Lahu Trim

Annette and I comment that we can see the possible uses for this technique   as a trim in period costumes.  She is keen to pick up the techniques so she can possibly introduce them to her costume students at NIDA.
Traditionally this trim is used on womens  costume, and Ya Mi has been using the trim in a contemporary context  to make her lovely  bags for WEFTshop. Together Ya Mi and Yapa are a fantastic teaching team,  and obviously really enjoying sharing their skills with the group, and soon enough everyone is engaged in the process . The time flies by and the participants comment on how tricky the skill is to master. Ya Mi reveals it takes her an hour to make 20cm of trim, so that encourages our efforts and we look forward to more practice tomorrow. Not only are we gaining new skills but also  developing more appreciation for the skill involved in producing the beautiful work Ya Mi does.

Ya Mi and Yapa Teaching Traditional Textile Skills

After lunch we head off to a traditional Burmese cooking class. Anna, Julia, Annette and Hana choose what they would like to make from the menu and go off to the market to purchase everything fresh. When they return they look exhilarated from the experience of visiting such a bustling local market. They are then into the kitchen where  under Bo Bo’s instruction they whisk up a feast of treats, samosa , ginger salad with fried nuts, sweet rice, and lemongrass juice.

Cooking Class at Borderline

Everyone really enjoyed the experience and again the day ended with  a relaxed feast together. Tomorrow we continue learning trims with Ya Mi and the in the afternoon starting to weave with Noe Thee.

Feasting at Borderline

Samosa and Ginger Salad

Julia Booth with her Lahu trim

Ya Mi then demonstrates a beading technique called “Hpushi” which is the domed  metal beading seen on Lahu costume.

Yami teaches in such a way that the group are fast on the uptake and quickly experimenting with the technique

Hana is especially creative, moving away from traditional geometry into curved patterns.Again Annette Ribbons and I discuss the possibilities of passing on this  beading style to her costume  students and agree it seems like great technique, giving a dramatic shiny effect which would be very effective on stage.

Hana and Annette master "Hpushi"

After lunch we return to our venue  refreshed and ready to get going on the weaving .Noe Thee and her assistant Nungn Kil have put in a bit of an all nighter to prepare the looms for us. Thankfully, because it takes two hours to thread the loom  and from the demonstration given by Noe Thee looks complicated , fiddly and a tantrum waiting to happen. It also takes two people to thread the loom, as they pass the fine warp yarn over and under creating the basic dimensions of the piece.

Noe Thee and her family have also spent the past week preparing the many coloured balls of yarn for our workshop, they take between two and four hours each to roll off the skein. I spoke to Noe Thee earlier today and she said she was excited and happy when she found out we were coming on the Textile Tour . She said she wanted to “ Talk about our work, sharing what we know, so you know how we do the weaving.” Noe Thee , Nungn Kil and Yapa very skillfully wind the thread onto spindles and our mother and daughter teams are ready to go.

Weaving is a very difficult skill to master and the back strap looms require that you are strapped into the loom using your bodies forward and backward motion in the process of weaving the fabric. Anna Booth spoke to me about her experience on the loom. She noted how great Yapa and Noe Thee were at demonstrating and teaching and said “Marvellous, I feel like i have really achieved something, I’d never even seen a loom before.It’s given me an idea of the skill involved, how incredibly clever it is to weave a pattern”

Hana said she really like the weaving even though she felt a bit sore from sitting,and a the end of the day we pretty much have to drag Hana and Annette off the looms. “It is compelling, and coming along quicker than i though” comments Annette. Although we all agree the most difficult part is the preparation which Noe Thee and Nungn Kil have already completed for us.

At the end of the day we are all suitably tired and pleased with ourselves.Noe Thee says she is very satisfied with how the day and went and is impressed with how quickly everyone picked up the basic skills. She remembers “When i first learnt i was very slow, i thought i would never learn”,and look at her now,earning an income from her weaving and teaching others.

Emma first visited the Thai-Burma border in 1996 and at that time became aware of the situation of refugees from Burma’s ethnic groups who were living here.Emma returned to work with women on the border years later in 2005 after completing a degree in Costume Making at NIDA ( National Institute of Dramatic Art) in Australia.

Amongst the many skills that Emma brings with her to WEFTshop are those of tailoring and sewing . Emma has always been interested in symbols and their meanings and use in textiles and clothing and an appreciation of “traditional skills.”Her desire to peruse and preserve these traditional skills was why she was drawn to tailoring. This desire also crosses over into working with the women in Thailand and Burma and wanting to develop and preserve their traditional skills, weaving,sewing and appliqué. Emma loves story telling and has always been interested in listening and learning from others. From working in a collaborative arts environment Emma has gained insight and experience in creatively working with others and exchanging knowledge. WEFTshop is built on teaching and learning simultaneously.

Her vision is for WEFTtshop to develop into a sustainable entity that helps the WEFTshop artisans to achieve their goals and visions

She is excited about the tour because it provides an opportunity for the WEFTshop artisans to take on the role of teacher and it is exciting to bring cultures together to share.
The main challenge with organising the tour has been that on the border things take time. You have to let go of controlling situations and go with the flow, often things resolve and if they don’t it allows space for other opportunities to arise. You need to communicate clearly so you are confident you are being understood. It has been challenging leading up to the tour trying to balance getting design work and samples done, organising and preparing for the tour and being a mother too 18mth old Tane. Emma says” On a personal note the most challenging thing is knowing you can only do so much when there continues to be so much tragedy, even seeing how many positive things are taking shape there is still so much hardship.”

It’s great to spend time on the border and see how WEFTshop has impacted on the womens’ lives.By accessing their innate talents and textile skills and challenging their organisational abilities they are starting to create business.On a daily basis income from WEFTshop sales helps to provide necessities for the women and their families. It also enables the women to provide work for others and helps to support the continuation of cultural traditions. Another aspect is the building of trusting relationships between Emma and the women and also seeing trusting relationships form between the women from different cultural groups.The women are empowered and developing a clear vision for the future.They have a sense of hope and the knowledge that if they can do it in a small way, they can help others to do it as well.
Emma says the women are her heroes communities that have been relocated from their original homelands, working together to support each other and adapt to a new life and country.
Better world arts, which collaborates between an Australian Aboriginal community and an Indian fair trade organisation creating the realisation of Aboriginal artworks in traditional indian embroidery.
The Social Studio Melbourne.
Emma’s heroes in the camps are all those humans out there who are trying to improve their lives and others in difficult circumstance, particularly those who document the atrocities at risk to their own lives in order to prevent them continuing and to help justice prevail.
What keeps her going is that she is committed and passionate. She says “You often see money being handed out but not so much skill transference” . WEFTshop is really hands on and focused on building skills that the women can develop and pass on to others.Emma is very committed to the personal relationships she has here with the women she says” it is like a marriage”. These women have taught her about generosity ,they always think about how they can give and they have begun a cycle of generosity. She feels like it is what she is meant to be doing.