The Lao Minority Weaving Cooperative in Dien Bien, Vietnam

In partnership with the “Entrepreneurs du Monde” association in Vietnam, Opportunity for Women is working to set up a weaving cooperative to enable women from Lao minorities in the village of Na Sang 1, near Dien Bien in the northeast of Vietnam, to preserve their know-how while benefiting from additional income.

Five Lao weavers join this cooperative

Five women from the village of Na Sang 1, decided to join this weaving cooperative set up by “Entrepreneurs du Monde”. Their motivations are numerous: pride in their culture, love of weaving and finally, the possibility of working from home.

Pom, group facilitator

Pom speaks Vietnamese and knows how to ride a motorbike, which makes her an ideal “facilitator” (she makes the cooperative run smoothly)! She is the one who receives the orders and gives instructions to the other weavers, then takes care of sending the packages using her motorbike. Always smiling, I really enjoyed taking pictures of her throughout the weaving process.

Pang, the oldest weaver

Pang knows all the secrets of dyeing and spinning cotton! She is the one who passes on these precious skills to other women and checks the recipes. In the photo, she uses a piece of bamboo to untangle the skeins.

Doi, the biggest

Doi is the tallest in size, which is quite convenient for fetching plants for dyeing in the forest! Like Pang, she also knows the forest plants for dyeing well. She is already a grandmother and Lucie was lucky enough to be invited to a party for the birth of a grandson in September 2019.

Giot, a smiling weaver

Giot, who enjoys weaving from home, has just joined the group of weavers. Giot is responsible for preparing the threads for the loom. This key step takes a day! And yes, forty small threads have to be tied together several times.

No, a serious weaver

Always very diligent, No weaves in her house on stilts, while her mother uses her magic fingers to make crocheted fishing nets. It was at her house that Lucie was able to take a nap during her visit in September 2019!

“Entrepreneurs of the world”, local support
The Vietnamese teams of the “Entrepreneurs du Monde” association have been established in this village for several years, mainly for microfinance programs. They are used to supporting development projects in their early stages and that is what they do here: managing the legal part, putting Opportunity for Women in contact with the weavers in order to align them and monitoring the beginnings of the cooperative by being on the ground.

A sustainable cooperative

This cooperative is based on the knowledge of forest plants and the know-how of these women!

Cotton from the plantations in the neighbouring village is grown in the traditional way: very few chemicals (only a little herbicide). Grown during the rainy season, in late May or early June, it therefore does not require water, and is picked by hand in November.

This cotton is quite fine and gives beautiful bright colors once spun and dyed. It is by using small wooden machines that women can transform the cotton flower into beautiful thread!

The dyeing is done without chemicals, only using plants from the surrounding forest that have a lot of tannin (chemical substance contained in a plant, which facilitates the absorption of color pigments), which avoids the use of mordants (chemical substance, which is impregnated into cotton threads to make them take the dye). The possible colors range from blue to yellow to orange!

The weaving is then done by hand in a “slow fashion” approach: we produce less quickly, in addition to work in the fields and in response to an order to avoid overproduction.

A solidarity cooperative

The women work together and that is also why they wanted to join the cooperative: they go together to collect the plants in the forest, prepare the dyes and the looms together! Then, they work from home at their own pace. When I asked which step they preferred, they unanimously answered “ALL”, because they like working together, but also weaving these traditional patterns that are their history.

These cotton threads weave bonds of solidarity between women around the world because their work is paid at the high end of the local average wage.

What joy for these women to see their weaving become a beautiful cushion!

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