At the Artisans’ Association of Cambodia (AAC), we like to focus on the people behind the products – people from whose hands have come intricate, beautiful handicrafts.
These are just a few of their stories…
Name: Keo Sarun
Organization: Stung Treng Women’s Development Center (SWDC)
When 22-year old Keo Sarun first began working at the Stung Treng Women’s Development Center (SWDC), she was not sure she would be staying for long.
“I found it very difficult as I had never done any work like this before,” Sarun recalls about her first 6-months working as a silk weaver at the SWDC vocational training centre in Stung Treng Province. “The silk kept breaking and I didn’t think I would complete my training and be given a job.”
Five years since completing her training at the local humanitarian NGO, Sarun now excels at weaving, having recently been given the responsibility for training other weavers at the centre.
“I love weaving and I love my job,” she exclaims. “I particularly enjoy having so many friends here because before I had to work on my own and had very few friends, which was very hard.”
Sarun’s situation has changed in many ways over the past five years. Before arriving at SWDC, she earned a meager income working in the rice fields during the rainy season and planting vegetables and catching fish during the dry season. She also lacked the confidence in herself that learning new skills, including English and IT, has given her.
But perhaps the most important thing about Sarun’s work is that she can now earn enough to help support her family, something that has always been a challenge for her parents and twelve brothers and sisters.
Right now, there is very little that Sarun would want to change about her life. As she explains: “When I was working in the rice fields, I was always thinking about how I might get a job and earn enough for myself and for my family.”
“Since coming to SWDC, my dreams have finally come true,” she adds.
Name: Youk Samoeun
Organization: Cambodia Craft Cooperation (CCC)
Ever since he was a little boy, Youk Samoeun enjoyed weaving. His parents would weave “kromas” (traditional Cambodian scarves) from underneath their house. Samoeun looked forward to coming home from school and getting started on his own scarves.
Despite the skills that he learnt, Samoeun’s family remained poor up until the time that he left home in search for a job in Phnom Penh. Although he was able to find a job as a weaver in the city, it did not pay enough and Samoeun missed life in the countryside.
When he heard about a new weaving project that was being setup not far from his home in Takeo Province, he immediately applied and was accepted as a weaver there. Since his arrival at the Tropaing Svay Weaving Centre in 1998, Samoeun has honed his skills, not only as a weaver but also as a designer.
It was these skills that Cambodia Craft Cooperation (CCC) first spotted in 2002, when they began supporting the weaving centre. CCC appointed Samoeun as their ‘master weaver’, giving him responsibility for training new weavers, overseeing quality control and coming up with new designs for CCC products.
“I still love weaving, even to this day,” says Samoeun, now 47-years old. He smiles when he thinks about how far the products he designs have traveled, from a small village in the south of Cambodia to fashion and handicraft shops all over the world.
“They are good products,” he says, confidently. “I think they deserve to be seen by the rest of the world.”
Name: Nom Yaun
Organization: Rehab Craft Cambodia
In a country where an estimated 3% of the population is disabled, Nom Yaun is reluctant to see herself as a victim. The 39-year-old’s life was turned upside down when she accidentally trod on a hidden landmine in the mountains of Kampot Province over 20 years ago.
“After the accident, it was hard to work and hard to dance,” Yaun recalls. “A lot of the time I just stayed inside the house.”
Yaun tried to make the best of her circumstances, opting to weave baskets from home for sale at the local market. But she remained frustrated at her inability to leave home and develop new skills that would help her earn an income to support the family.
She eventually decided to move to Phnom Penh to train as a sewer at one of the city’s many textile training centres. During her time at the centre, she heard good reports about a small Cambodian NGO that was looking to hire a team of sewers to extend its range of handmade products.
Yaun applied for the post at Rehab Craft Cambodia and was successful, the first of many positive changes in her life. “I know that life is much better for me now,” Yaun says, having spent the past ten years developing her skills at Rehab Craft as a sewer and supervisor of the production team. “I am not discriminated against here like I was when I stayed at home.”
