Check out our project

After you have read this posting this blog is best read from the bottom first.

To dowload the brochure please access this link (http://www.wyps.org/pdf/5-Carpets.pdf) from the WYPS web page http://www.wyps.org.

Here is a brief history of the project.

It started after I had made several trips to the Cambodian-Thai border to extend my visa. On each trip I had met and started to make friends with a small group of children who were begging from tourists. They triggered something inside me that has been waiting to go off for a long time and after I learned more about their situation I decided I wanted to do more to help them than buy them a meal once a month when I was extending my visa.

I spent several trips trying to find out more about them and their situation, going to visit their families, having a meeting with the village women etc to see what could be done to help their situation.

Early on when I asked the village women what would be best for them they said money or work. They said that starting a factory and employing them or training people in skills like sewing and electronics would be best.

My main idea was to try and help the children I had befriended to have proper educations and eventually access some of the opportunities I have had. So I simply put two and two together and decided to try and help the parents or families earn money so that the children no longer needed to beg.

Initially I though that sewing would be the way to go. I started trying to raise money to buy used sewing machines so that we could train them through one of the NGO's already there and let them then hire or buy them on credit and use them to generate income. However this approach bumped into a few obstacles.. Some of the biggest were that:

1) The mothers from this group would not be able to take time unpaid to do training as they had too many children to take care of.
2) The sewing and garment industry and market, while open, is becoming increasingly competitive
3) They did not have the networks for buying and selling (Finding the market is the key and has proven difficult for similar projects)

While investigating this earlier in 2004 with a friend and colleague (Jay) we had a golden opportunity dropped in our laps.

Our Executive Director (K. Sukanya) at the foundation I was working for had sent some emails out about finding second hand sewing machines and one reply came from a factory that made carpets who had a show room downstairs from our office. They sent us some wool scraps to see if we could make use of them and then we had a meeting with the Managing Director (K. DuanKeaw) who said they had lots of this and that she had researched a technique for turning these scraps into carpets by hand. She also said that if we can make it in the villages she would supply all the material and buy back all the finished products.

The technique is called "latch hooking" and seems to be a common pastime in many western homes (my Nannamade a big rug like this) as there are websites about it everywhere. The great thing is that this technique requires only a small wood and metal latch hook (or even a crochet hook), the wool and what is basically a net to knot the wool onto. So the capital required to run the project is minimal and only really requires an administrator and a case worker as running costs.

Where are we now? (June 2005)

Regarding the children:

Initially we had employed (out of pocket) a girl we trust to meet the children everyday after they finished on the border, help them when needed, spend time with them and report to us. She was payed 50 Thai Baht (less then $2 AUD) per day for about 1-3 hours work. Unfortunately her fulltime employer wouldn’t let her continue and so after 3 months this stopped. We decided to get the production side of the project up and running first so taht we could use the revenue from that on the out reach aspect with the kids rather than pay out of pocket.

Production side:

We completed initial rounds of testing where we made small carpets of different size and materials. You can see the result of the first and second rounds I the “Original Flier” and “CfC_Brochure” Respectively.

We have now demonstrated the ability to turn out quality pieces and found the right materials to satisfy the Carpet factory’s requirements.

This week we have just reached an agreement with Carpet Maker as to what the best product is, what price they should pay us for the finished product and how many square meters they will buy from us per month.

They will buy a maximum of 40sqm in July and August, 80sqm (max) in September and October and a minimum of 80sqm in November and December.

See “resource_planning – june 2005.xls” for the details and figures.

We are currently fundraising to cover the salary for the extra staff that will be required for managing production and outreach and cover participants wages.


People who are working on this project:

Andrea – Project manager (in Bangkok / Poi pet, Cambodia – Paid a stipend by WYPS)

Dave - Founder (Finishing his studies In Australia now)

Jay - Director (working for WYPS (Same small foundation) in Bangkok)

Leigh - Volunteer (In Bangkok – Working for an NGO)

Associated
Chomno - Founder and Director of CHO (and his staff)



Contact: david@wyps.org or regarding the production side: Andrea on carpets@wyps.org