Inland, within the mountainous Toraja region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, local weavers are improving their quality of life by making and selling fashionable goods from traditional fabrics.
Women weavers show the intricacies of how each motif was woven into every bit of cloth. And inside each motif was a mathematical formula that determined what number of threads of every color needed to be woven together to systematically, accurately, and beautifully create the specified pattern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xszehwOpWc
The production of a single woven cloth also weaves the material of this society. Master weavers pass on their legacy to their grandchildren, to moms who weave to feed their families, and to young women who weave to pay school fees.
“Weaving is our cultural heritage, so we need to protect it and improve its quality,” said Yuliana Padallingan, a weaving artist from Toraja. Our higher worlda storytelling initiative led by the Singapore International Foundation.
This is what inspires Dinny Jusuf, Torajamelo, a social enterprise that goals to rework the lives of poor women weavers, giving them a source of income and economic independence in order that they shouldn’t have to go away their families and go to town to develop into maids.
“Our program is designed to help weavers enter the global market. All they need is access to the market and capital,” Dinny said.
A deeper, underlying trend was the response to the necessity to revive the dying craft of weaving in Toraja, within the face of the erosion of old traditions and the undeniable fact that the indigenous people were on the verge of rapid modernization.
Sharing her concerns, Dinny told Our Better World magazine: “That’s when I made a decision [also] construct community and deal with the revival of traditional weavers.”
Torajamelo currently offers scholarships to the youngsters and grandchildren of weavers to enable them to proceed their education and buy medical insurance, especially for girls’s reproductive health.
“Our dream is to improve the well-being of the weaving artist, it is a long journey. They can be proud to be a weaving artist, as proud as if they were a doctor or an engineer,” he adds.
The more people appreciate and buy the fabrics, the higher the weavers will find a way to earn a living. You should purchase bags, shoes and garments woven by the ladies of Torajamelo in http://torajamelo.com/
Authorship history Our higher world – telling stories about good that encourage motion.
