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Thai weavers leave
lasting impression in East Timor
- Timor Aid is looking to expand
an innovative weaving project in Timor Leste. The project grows out
of an initial pilot model funded by UNIFEM.
United Nations,
Bangkok – The beautiful form and function of Thai traditional weaving
has always been appreciated by visitors from abroad. Less well known
is that Thai weavers have proven willing to share their knowledge and
skills with others.
This was behind
Antonio Coelho’s visit to Thailand in September 2003. Antonio works for Timor
Aid and he hoped to get
Thai government support to bring weavers to East Timor to teach their
skills  to
poor villagers there.
This has already
worked once. In early 2003, the United Nations Development Fund for
Women (UNIFEM) sent Thai weavers from the Ratchburi Jok Weaving Centre
to East Timor to conduct training in three rural districts. The
Timorese women had no experience with vertical looms, as they had only
used very slow and cumbersome backstrap looms – literally using their
backs as a brace.
“It normally takes
women one month to weave only two metres of cloth,” Coelho says,
“whereas with the Thai looms they can get the same result in half a
day or less.”
UNIFEM’s East and
Southeast Asia regional office has been working
to support women in East Timor’s nation building process. When weaving
appeared as a good means of raising incomes, UNIFEM contacted the Ratchburi Jok Weaving Centre and asked if they could teach their
skills abroad.
The Ratchburi Jok
Weaving Centre was established in 1987 as a non-government
organization aimed at conserving the traditional Thai Jok weaving and
developing a community of weavers. Currently, the Centre helps
generate an income of around US$100,000 yearly for its members. The
Centre also provides training in weaving skills to home-workers, and
students in schools and colleges in Ratchburi province.
The Centre’s
director, Udom Somporn, was enthusiastic about the project. In the
end, a team of four weavers left Ratchburi to spend six weeks in three
remote district in East Timor.
The training was
conducted with the help of Timor Aid. In each district, three
carpenters were trained to make looms, and at least six weavers, all
women, were trained in how to prepare the yarn and use the vertical
loom. Many other weavers observed the training. In one district, three
looms were completed as planned and one 60-meter cloth was completed
during the training. The trainees continued to complete the cloth on
the other two looms after the training.
As there was no
translator available, and the Thai weavers spoke little English, the
biggest obstacle was language. Some help came from a nearby Thai
military battalion, but for the most part the trainers and their
students coped by writing ideas and instructions on paper, and
repeating lessons again when needed.
“The Thai weavers
were very patient and had a great capacity to teach,” Timor Aid’s
Coelho says.
The normal
three-month learning programme was packed into only two weeks in each
district – but still the Timorese women picked up the skill and could
weave on their own by the end.
The products of the
training attracted immediate attention, and the local government in
one of the districts was so impressed they offered to contract the
weavers to make uniforms for employees in the future.
Like in Thailand,
weaving in East Timor is traditionally the work of women. UNIFEM runs
many development projects that seek to improve women’s economic
position – but the work in East Timor had an importance beyond raising
women’s incomes. The carpenters building the looms were all men – so
the project benefited them as well.
East Timor society
is still bears the scars of war, and there is rampant unemployment
among men. The social problems this can cause make any effort to bring
women and men together a positive force.
“It’s too soon to
know the social impact of this project,” Coelho says, “but we see
benefits for both women and men.”
Coelho was surprised
at first to see the village men were interested in weaving. Clearly,
they could see the potential offered by the new looms.
“We could change the
traditional division of labour a bit because the looms were something
new,” Coelho says.
As carpenters
building the looms, the men will also need to learn how to act as
technicians, to maintain the devices and help load the yarn. Coelho
says this means they must understand the entire weaving process –
something they’ve never paid attention to before.
“Women will still be
the weavers, but men building looms will have to teach their
‘customers’ how to use them, so they must know how to do it as well.”
Timor Aid is now
trying to find donor support to set up a weaving school that would
teach Timorese women and men how to turn loom building and weaving
into a sustainable business. The challenges are great, given the many
limitations of the East Timor economy. There is no domestic supply of
yarn, for example, so it has to be imported at a cost far above what
the project can pay.
“We have a donation
of five tons of yarn from a German man, but we can’t even pay the tax
to bring it into the country,” Coelho laments.
The school Timor Aid
hopes to set up will therefore need to cover the entire business cycle
– from making or procuring yarn to creating new designs and marketing
the final product.
‘We can’t just copy
Thai or Indonesian designs,” Coelho warns, “We have to work with
Timorese traditional designs and help with the creative process so the
villagers can think of a new look.”
The first step in
this long process is to solidify the basic lessons by having the
Ratchburi Jok Weaving Centre return to East Timor for a longer stay.
Coelho would like Udom and his team to teach for three or four months.
“We need to find
some young students who can learn quickly and then train others in the
future,” Coelho says.
The Thai weavers are
more than willing to return to East Timor – and Timor Aid is now
looking for the financial support needed to make this happen.
For more information contact Antonio
Coelho at antoniofeco@hotmail.com.
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