Tajikistan Bound Part Two: The Program

This is part two of a post by Cindy Lair’s, Chair of the WARP board, efforts to get a loom to Tajikistan. In the previous post, Cindy talked about helping to get a donated (nonfunctioning) loom to Tajikistan. The loom was destined to assist a group of rural women who weave incredible mohair blanks. Before she tackled the loom project, she wanted to learn as much as possible about the program that would ultimately make use of the loom. By studying this one project, Cindy gives us an insight into the intricacies of international development. To see more photos from the project, visit our Pinterest Page.

Tajikistan shepherds show off their colored angora goats. Photos Courtesy of Libra Brent

The project in Tajikistan focused on a small group of shepherds in the mountainous regions of the country. An effort to improve their breeding stock for fleece weight and quality and to establish small scale fiber processing was started by Dr. Liba Brent, a sociologist from Madison, Wisconsin, under the auspices of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Fleece for sale.

Hang with me here, there are a lot of long names and complicated cooperative relationships. The IFAD is a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries. The IFAD has many different grant programs available to fund agricultural related development. One of the available grants is the Community Action in Integrated and Market Oriented Feed-Livestock Production in Central and South Asia. The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) is part of a global partnership under the umbrella of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) applied for and received the Feed-Livestock Production grant. ICARDA’s involvement in the region attracted the attention of the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme, a branch of the Aga Khan Development Network dedicated to improving the life of the people of the mountainous oblasts of Tajikistan.

Collectively, all these complicated funding, research, and development agencies and organizations were seeking to promote the rights of women through increased skill development and access to global markets and income opportunities. In particular, one focus of ICARDA’s is value chain management for sheep and goat farming communities in Central Asia. Value chain managment—also called value added agriculture—focus on creating more value at the “farm” gate, so that producers receive more money for their good. Value is added transforming raw goods into finished projects by increasing the quality of the goods that may already be in production.

A spinner transforms mohair fiber into yarn.

In the past three years, these collective efforts, have raised the income of participating families by as much as 50%. For example, in 2010, Dr. Brent arranged for semen from the top buck at the 30th Annual Angora Goat Performance Test Sale in Texas. This buck’s clean fleece weight produced 13.1 pounds of fiber with a lock length of 7.2 inches! This hearty fellow helped improve the fiber of the Tajik goats. In turn, the women of the village transform the improved fleece into yarn that they used to weave higher quality blankets. These efforts enhanced women’s standing in their families by enabling them to become wage earners.

As I learned more about this project it became closer to my heart, since a large portion of the project involved not just weaving, but spinning, as well. It motivated me to do my part to get them better tools to support their families.  Since they only had one loom that ten weavers had to share, sending them an additional loom essentially allowed them to double their production.  How’s that for impact, and all of this was accomplished without every leaving my community.

To purchase yarn from Tajikistan, click here.

For more information about the funding agencies, visit these websites:

IFAD www.ifad.org

ICARDA www.icard.org

Aga Khan Foundation www.akdn.org

To learn more about projects like these, like WARP’s Facebook page. To learn more about WARP, visit our website. To see more photos from Tajikistan, visit our Pinterest page.

Tajikistan Bound Part One: The Loom

Cindy Lair in her office at Schacht Spindle Company. She spent nearly a year traveling by armchair to assist a rural community in Central Asia.

This is the first of a two-part post about Cindy Lair’s efforts to get a donated loom to Tajikistan. Cindy is the WARP’s board chair and the Planning Manager at Schacht Spindle Company, a loom and spinning wheel manufacturer. Part two will be posted on March 17.

I have spent a great deal of time in Central Asia over the last several years, not literally, but in my mind. I have neither the time or the money to travel, so for me, my imagination must suffice.

During Weave A Real Peace’s 2011 annual meeting, Marilyn Murphy of ClothRoads asked if I could help ship a loom to Tajikistan to support a group of village weavers. I have spent the last two decades working at Schacht Spindle Company, a spinning wheel and loom manufacture in Boulder, Colorado, so I know a thing or two about shipping looms.

The Loom Arrives

The loom had been donated in the hope that it would assist the weavers in Tajikistan make their sumptuous kid mohair blankets. I was expecting a functioning loom dismantled for shipping. What arrived was an old counterbalance loom that sadly would not be of much use.

The loom when it arrived

My curiosity and inability to leave well enough alone got the better of me. With only a photocopy of the once functioning loom, I began the journey of reconstruction. Old looms are like puzzles, and everyone’s curiosity about the partially set-up loom was piqued, inspiring help and generosity of spirit that makes me proud to work at Schacht.

Marilyn had sent me a photo of a weaver and her daughters holding up a beautiful kid Mohair blanket. At a ClothRoads trunk show held at Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins in Boulder, I was able to see and feel this blanket for myself. What an incredible pleasure! It was so luxurious, I wanted to cocoon myself in it and never ever move again.

The blanket was made by ten weavers that share a single loom. I posted the photo of the blanket and its makers nearby to remind myself and others that this effort was a shared journey. Although these weavers and I may never meet, our lives have intersected making us a part of each other’s journey.

During the reconstruction process, I was stumped by the braking mechanism made of beautiful old cast iron. No matter what I did I could not get it to fit on the loom. I did some research on the internet and dug through the library of books at Schacht and my personal collection with no results.

Deborah Chandler, founder of WARP, came to mind. Maybe she had run across a similar breaking mechanism during her year’s of work in Guatemala? Deborah emailed me photos of a field solution she has encountered many times—a stick jammed against the beam to keep it from moving. That made me laugh, and was my kind of solution! However, I wanted something more functional than practical for the women of Tajikistan.

The assembled loom!

In the end, I used a modified braking system similar to one that is used on Schacht looms. After a month of trial and error, the loom was back in working order. We replaced some of the wood parts with metal to be sure that the loom could withstand a lot of use and so that the parts would be long lasting in a place where woodworking tools are scarce.

Shipping The Loom

I labeled and photographed all the parts during disassembly to make reconstruction as easy as possible. While I was at work on the loom, our shipping expert was looking into costs and box sizes. How indeed would the loom get to Tajikistan?

Whenever I give tours of Schacht I like to start with shipping, because the design of the final product must adhere to shipping restrictions dictated by the companies moving the product. All countries have rules and regulations about the size and shape of product moving into and out of their borders.

Our first information was that Tajikistan would only accept packages of certain dimensions. This loom was far too tall to fit the requirements. I began to ponder how to reduce the size and the height of the loom without compromising performance. Fortunately, I hadn’t sawed the loom in half yet when we received new information based on volume that would allow us to meet the requirements. YES!!

The photo of a Tajikistan weaver and her daughters that kept Cindy inspired. Photo Courtesy of Liba Brent.

Off the loom went until it reached Istanbul where it stayed put for a month until the Turkish airways decided to start flying to Dushanbe again. After a long truck journey, the loom was finally delivered to the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme. What a satisfying experience!

Coincidentally, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, is a sister city to Boulder, Colorado. Boulder was the recipient of a stunning tea house built by Tajik craftsmen. When the annual Weave a Real Peace meeting was held in Boulder in 2012, we began our conference at the Tea House.

The loom is hard at work in its new home, in the Tajik Pamir Mountains where it will continue to serve to increase the status of women. I was able to help this small mountain community thousands of miles from my home, because I have a specific set of skills and access to a community of experts that know a thing or two about making and shipping looms. Anyone with a willingness to learn and share their skills, can become involved in a project that can better the lives of others. For this WARP member and armchair traveler, all that was needed was an opportunity to use the resources in my own neighborhood.

Stay tuned for part two of this post, and discover what Cindy learned from her research about the many funding agencies that support this one small community of shepherds in Tajikistan. To purchase yarn from Tajikistan, click here.  To learn more about projects such as these, like WARP’s Facebook page. To learn more about WARP, visit our website. To see more photos from Tajikistan, visit our Pinterest page.

An Alice Brown Scholarship Recipient, “WARP Changed My Life!”

Kelsey Viola Wiskirchen, past Alice Brown Memorial Scholarship recipient with member of Club de Chicas, daughters of PAZA members.

I became a member of Weave a Real Peace (WARP) in 2010, when I received the Alice Brown Memorial Scholarship to attend WARP’s annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona.  I was in my first year of the MFA program in fibers at Arizona State University, and I was searching for a way to expand beyond the framework of my classes  and studio.   I was fascinated by the common thread between textiles, history, and community in society’s worldwide. I didn’t see myself as solely a studio artist, and was unsure how to make a place for myself in this vast legacy.

The 2010 meeting was just the spark I needed. WARP members run the gamut of textile enthusiasts—writers, artisans, teachers, learners, travelers, activists, conservators, and merchants. Each person I met was dedicated to affecting real change in the world through the very thing that was near and dear to me, textiles. I met WARP founder Debora Chandler, whose book Learning to Weave I had read to teach myself to weave.  I also met Dorinda Dutcher, who invited me to visit PAZA, a weaving cooperative in Bolivia.

That weekend, one of WARP’s longtime members asked me, “What will you do now?” This question continues to propel me forward. I left with a sense of purpose, something that had been missing before.

Kelsey warps a loom with Doña Maxima, Bolivian master weaver and leader of PAZA

I traveled to Bolivia to volunteer with PAZA later that year, and the following year I spent the summer with Mapusha, a women’s weaving cooperative in South Africa. Two years later, my MFA thesis focused on the universality of shared stories, skills, and empowerment for women through textiles.

I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, where I am involved in the Craft Alliance and St. Louis ArtWorks, both programs allow me to use my knowledge of textiles as a vehicle for conversation and community engagement. The WARP meeting is my yearly jump start. It gives me a chance to re-connect with old friends and make new ones. Hearing about projects, discussing issues, and sharing time with this group of like-minded individuals generates a year’s worth of excitement and energy. With great confidence, I can say that WARP has changed the course of my life.

To see Kelsey’s artwork visit her website.  The deadline to apply for the WARP’s Alice Brown Memorial Scholarship to attend this year’s annual meeting in St. Louis is March 15, 2014. If you are planning on attending the meeting, there is an opportunity for you to donate to the scholarship fund right on the registration form. 

A Postcard from Tinkuy

At right, Doña, Katie, and Dorinda sort dye plants during a natural dye workshop with Nilda Callañaupa during Tinkuy.

In the past few blog posts we have seen a recurring theme that travel leads to stronger connections among weavers of different nations.  Katie Simmons sent this remembrance of one instance during her recent journey to Tinkuy a gathering of weavers in Cusco, Peru. Katie and other WARP helped raise funds to support Doña Maxima’s journey to Tinkuy.  Thanks to everyone who make this cultural exchange among weavers possible. To see more photos from the gathering, we have Tinkuy board on our Pinterest page. 

I sat still among a sea of color gazing at the elaborate clothes for a celebration that I know nothing about.Weavers wear unique hats, skirts, made in styles of weaving and spinning unfamiliar to me. In this crowded room, I make eye contact with fellow WARP members without whom I would not be here. Although many here are strangers to me, we all share a common bond through cloth making. I am in the middle of the Tinkuy: A Gathering of Weavers.

Wandering over to join a spinning circle, I am sad that I left my pushka (drop spindle) at the hotel. Lo and behold baskets of pushkas and fiber are available! A coffee colored alpaca fiber speaks to me and sit down to start spinning. Bolivian, master weaver Doña Máxima spindle is already filling up in the moments it took me to choose my fiber. She stops only to start my spindle and goes back to her work. Dorinda Dutcher, founder of PAZA gets caught up in the moment and joins in the spinning. All around us people are spinning. Some are learning for the first time, while others have been spinning their entire lives. Laughing together, Doña helps Dorinda untangle her yarn.

The spinning contest starts with dances in between. Doña Maxima takes second place, spinning almost five yards in the allotted time.  During the last dance the dancers on the stage flow into the audience. Doña is swept up, then Dorinda, I turn to get my camera and I, too, am pulled into the dance. As a dancer myself I relish that shared experience. I have no pictures of that dance. It is a rare moment for the three of us to dance with weavers from around the world, but it is not needed because I will always hold that dance in my heart.

Katie Simmons is a member of the WARP Governing Board. 

If you are interested in learning more about the weavers of Peru, be sure to pick up a copy of Faces of Tradition: Weaving Elders of the Andes by Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez and Christine Franquemont, with photographs from Joe Coca.  It is a treasure. 

Weavers Wanted

Watch this fifteen minute as Roy Rylander talks to community members of San Antonio about their communities challenges and possibilities.

A WARP member sent us a clipping about a community in Belize looking for weavers to volunteer in their village.  We reached out to Roy Rylander, a community organizer in this small village, for more information. 

In 2008, Rod Rylander decided to retire in the small community of San Antonio Rio Hondo, located on a narrow island in Belize near the boundary of Mexico.  This remote village is home to about 60 families. Rod served there as a Peace Corps volunteer from 2000-2002.

As a member of the community, Rod has initiated many different projects to support the village in which he lives . The villagers grow very little of their own food, so Rod started a community garden using raised beds made from discarded tires. He has converted an old school bus to a community center where young children have access to a small library and a computer. He and a host of volunteers teach the local school children how to read and basic computer literacy skills. The bus has a small apartment that houses volunteers that can live rent free while volunteering a few hours a day in the community center.

Recently Rod introduced weaving and sewing classes to help village women build craft skills to create more opportunities for earning income to support their families. High school students must commute to school and the cost is too much for some villagers. Income made by the women from selling the products would help with transpiration costs.

“My weaving skills are very limited although we have made some neat bags” says Rod. The villagers have access to sales venues in Belize City and has formed a relationship with ENACTUS, a marketing club at Texas Women’s University to create markets in the United States. Rod is interested in increasing the skill level of the weavers so that they can create a professional product that the women can produce and market.

Rod finds volunteers through word of mouth and via Workaway, a website that connects volunteers to projects worldwide. It helps if you can speak Spanish, but most villagers can understand some English.

To learn more about the project, visit Workaway to read testimonials from past volunteers or visit Rod’s website www.sanantoniobelize.com

If you enjoy reading stories like these don’t forget to renew your membership to support the work of WARP. 2014 renewal letters are going out this month. WARP is offering a $20 gift membership for new members if payment accompanies your renewal. Consider a WARP membership as part of your holiday gift giving. WARP is the gift that keeps giving! 

A Conversation with Renee Bowers of the Fair Trade Federation

October is Fair Trade Month. We asked Renee Bowers, Executive Director of the Fair Trade Federation (FTF) and a WARP member to answer a few questions about fair trade, textiles, and the best way to make a difference. 

WARP: How would you describe the FTF in five words? 

Renee Bowers: Strengthen fully fair trade businesses.

What is the biggest challenge in bringing fair trade goods to market?

RB: Fully fair trade businesses like our members are working against unsustainable practices that have become the norm in conventional business. Unfortunately, most shoppers have come to expect certain things from bigger brands, such as lightning-fast production, near constant trend turnover, and impossibly low prices. Fair trade partnerships aren’t always easily understood because we’ve stopped thinking about where the things we eat, wear, and use come from or how they’re made. At the FTF, we believe that if good businesses practices were more celebrated, demand for fair trade goods would really increase.

The fair trade movements has its roots in marketing textiles. What role do textiles play in the movement today?

RB: Textiles still play a huge role in fair trade! Many shoppers want things like rugs, bags, clothes, and other fabrics and artisans around the globe have exceptional skills and talents in making these very items. Although fair trade has expanded over the years to include, coffee, chocolate, food, and personal care items, handmade craft products are still a core area of fair trade—especially in the US and Canada.

Most importantly, fair relationships continue to be an essential means of supporting weavers and garment makers in developing countries.

The majority of WARP members are individuals that make textiles themselves and have a strong affinity for the people that make textiles.  Our members often ponder how to use their skills to help fair trade cooperatives thrive.  Any advise?

RB: One of the best ways to have an impact is to buy products—including textiles—from fully fair trade businesses. While this may not always feel as direct, you can rest assured that the income from your purchase makes a huge difference to the lives of textile artisans.

In terms of sharing expertise, I’d recommend first taking advantage of a fair trade travel/volunteer opportunity. A few opportunities with FTF members include:

Women In Progress, an international volunteer organization

Global Exchange, responsible travel opportunities

Looking for something to do during the holiday season? Mayan Hands, a member of the Fair Trade Federation and WARP is offering a tour, December 4 − 14 of this year.

What is the difference between an organization being a member of the Fair Trade Federation and a product being fair trade certified?

RB: Certification is a system that audits worksites—primarily farms—for health, safety, and labor compliance. Certification does not speak to the business practices of the company that sells or markets the product in North America.

The Fair Trade Federation is a membership organization that celebrates the whole business. We believe that fair trade requires a deep commitment to poverty alleviation, including direct trading relationships with small scale artisans and farmers. Businesses in the US and Canada go through a rigorous screening process in order to become members. This screening is a holistic evaluation o the businesess’ fair trade practices.

To find a full list of members, visit the Fair Trade Federation’s website. 

The Power of Conversation

For over twenty years WARP has fostered a conversation between people who have a deep and abiding love for textiles and those that create them. Established as a networking organization, WARP works to educate, connect, and inspire us all to take a second look at the cloth that surrounds them and think about the people and processes that made it, particularly in communities in need.

For years, the good old fashioned way of communicating with our network has served us well; publishing a robust newsletter, hosting an annual gathering of members, creating a detailed directory of  member projects and textile interest, and providing a traveling slideshow for guilds, conferences, classrooms, and where ever textile enthusiast gather.

Early on in the digital age we added a website and a member’s only Yahoo discussion group. It is surprising at times the amount of human contact social media provides. It connects us to cloth and cloth makers in new and exciting ways. With the launch of our new blog we are stepping up our conversations on our social media sites. Follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook to learn about the current project of our members, textiles around the world, the latest WARP news, and connect with other textile enthusiast. If you are a textile artist yourself, you can find us on Ravelry and Weavolution. Bookmark or subscribe to this blog to dig a little deeper into the discussion. Share the links you like with your friends and help us grown the conversation.

Then, consider becoming a member of WARP. For a nominal annual membership fee, you can help support this conversation. You need not be a textile worker or project host yourself. You need only have the desire to stay connected to the cloth and cloth makers that surround us.

—Weave A Real Peace (WARP)