22 Jan FRIDAY FILES – Sustainable Partnership With Villageworks
Our collaboration with VillageWorks focuses on empowering women and men to find a stable income through handcrafted production, improving the livelihoods of their communities and ensuring children have access to education and safer environments across Cambodia.
We send our discontinued sampling and fabrics to Anak at VillageWorks who makes them into hand-crafted products. Our fabrics are used to produce bags, small coin purses, pencil cases and other fabric products. The VillageWorks role in organising, equipping and inspiring rural communities with the production of these goods have seen immense improvements – providing members with meaningful work and stronger economic stability.
By repurposing Boyac fabrics, VillageWorks not only grants local communities the ability to engage in a sustainable means of an independent livelihood; it also restores the spirit of these Cambodian communities, empowering them with independence.
By using indigenous techniques and handmade craftsmanship with Boyac fabrics, the quality and beauty of these products is exceptional. The true beauty of these products comes from the people who have created them.
ABOUT VILLAGEWORKS
This Social Enterprise was registered back in 2001 and is a Guaranteed Member of the World Fair Trade Organisation. Their work includes the provision of training for men and women within small communities across rural Cambodia in sewing and handcrafting to provide an additional income for their families.
Alongside this work, they have established the Polio Centre, an initiative started back in 2014, employing 25 men and women who have the opportunity to earn a sustainable income. The difference is, these employees have Polio or other debilitating disabilities and would otherwise be unable to work. VillageWorks provide them with fair wages, housing allowances and access to basic health insurance.
As Project Director Anak shared, ‘I feel it is my mission to help my people have a sustainable income’.
To find out more about VillageWorks and the work they do, please see their website.
