The Center for Research, Linkage and Development of Crafts (Craft Link) was established in 1996. This organization has become very prestigious in implementing projects in training the ethnic people to learn crafts in the mountain areas to help them increase their income, eliminate hunger and reduce poverty in a sustainable and effective way.
Ethnic women in the mountain areas in Vietnam are skilled and know many traditional crafts such as sewing, embroidery, weaving and knitting. However, most of them do not know how to organize the work and promote their products, so they are unable to develop the economy with their traditional crafts.
Exhibition of projects on the protection of traditional handicraft products in mountain areas on the occasion of 15th founding of the Craft Link. Photo: Cong Dat
Craft Link expert instructs ethnic women on traditional crafts. Photo: Craft Link’s file
Teaching ethnic women how to do business with their traditional craft. Photo: Craft Link’s file
Craft Link expert teaches ethnic women how to calculate the products’ price. Photo: Craft Link’s file
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| Craft Link is a Vietnamese not-for-profit non-governmental organization with fair trade. It operates with the aim of assisting the ethnic groups, groups of disabled people and craft villages restore the traditional cultures and increase income for craft producers. |
For nearly 15 years, Craft Link has gone to many remote villages to open training courses for farmers on organizing the skills of measuring, tailoring and finishing, promoting, recording, calculating and selling the products. Craft Link also helps the farmers sell their products through its system of agents. Thanks to this, their handicraft products are not only sold to tourists in the country but are also exported to markets in Europe, America and other countries around the world.
Craft Link’s journey to the remote areas was full of hardships. Craft Link General Director Tran Tuyet Lan said that once the project team went to San Sa Ho Commune, Sa Pa District (Lao Cai Province) to offer to help the Mong ethnic people increase production capacity and seek markets for their handicraft products. Unable to persuade them to join the project, the team members led them to visit Ta Phin Village where a Craft Link project had been successfully implemented. After seeing with their own eyes the results achieved by the Ta Phin people, they began implementing the project. This proves that to convince the ethnic people, apart from having enthusiasm, the team must also understand psychology, culture and customs.
Federica Voltoline (from Oxfam Italy) who volunteered to go with Craft Link to many areas of the ethnic groups, said: “Craft Link projects have helped the local people improve their lives and enhance their cultures. I have seen that this organization has a staff of very devoted and creative people who help the highlanders develop and export their beautiful products to the world.”
It is impressive that Craft Link’s members are very young and 98% of them are female. With a desire to help the ethnic people develop their economy and preserve their traditional crafts, they go to many remote villages, fearless of the hardships and difficulties, to learn. From these trips, they create many designs to satisfy the market’s tastes and place the orders with the local people who make the products using traditional techniques for export. Thanks to this, the cultural and economic values of these traditional products are raised significantly.
Ethnic women in Ha Giang Province for the first time see their designs on the computer. Photo: Craft Link’s file
People in mountain areas face many difficulties in their life. Photo: Cong Dat
Ethnic people earn more income from embroidering and sewing. Photo: Cong Dat
Traditional products made by ethnic women are sold in the market. Photo: Cong Dat
The project of Craft Link helps ethnic women in mountainous areas develop economy and preserve their traditional craft.
Photo: Cong Dat |
Every year, Craft Link organizes traditional handicraft fairs in Hanoi to provide an opportunity for people from the mountainous areas to introduce their products and communicate with customers to seek more markets.
So far, Craft Link has successfully implemented about 30 projects in many cities and provinces throughout the country, creating stable jobs for over 6,000 people, most of whom are women of ethnic groups, like the Mong, Dao, Thai, Ta Oi, Cham, Lo Lo, Nung and Khmer. In 2011, Craft Link implemented four projects to support the traditional craft development for women of the Mong and Dao groups in Sa Pa and the Lo Lo group in Meo Vac District (Ha Giang Province).
Talking about future plans, Tran Tuyet Lan said: “Wherever there are poor women and traditional handicraft products there are Craft Link’s footsteps. We want to bring an occupational passion to the poor women in the mountain areas, so that their products with distinctive cultural identities have a place in the heart of the Vietnamese people and international friends.”
Story: Bich Van - Photos: Cong Dat - Craft Link's file