Art and culture are part of the pillars to our identity, a great form of expression and one of the greatest ways to help uplift and help communities in our nation.
The Agency of promotion of Indigenous crafts has conducted a 14 days tailoring course for the weavers group in Dorjibee Bumthang. APIC after consulting the group in the past decided to provide skills to help the income generation of rural women of the weaving group in Dorjibee as per the request of the group. It is aimed at helping the group market and improves their production base by value adding to the material they weave.
The weavers of Dorji bee produce products such as raw silk bura herbal dyed materials, woolen materials and Teri cotton materials.
The group has a lack of marketing skills and have problems in sourcing raw materials ,APIC in order to assist the rural women weavers and artisans is adopting the group as a cluster and will be assisting them in future besides this training we hope to establish a raw material bank and help them create links for marketing their products.
The current training was attended by 12 participants and was started on the 25 of April, it concludes on 8 may 2014.The training is a basic skill training where the participants learn to use a sewing machine and are trained to stitch a tego ,wonju ,and five different types of bags.
The weavers of Dorji beee are skilled at herbal and natural tradition dye they possess the knowledge passed down generation to generation and one of their greatest strengths is that they use natural dye to color their yarn for weaving. The skill of herbal and natural dye is not being protected enough and easily available chemically dyed yarns are sweeping our markets ,it is essential for us to preserve this art and realize the value of this great skill which may need our peoples support.
The Chairperson of the group Ugyen Lhamo says they will benefit from this training as, now they will be able to stitch little bags and small souvenirs for sale from their weaving group’s .it will also help as they will not have to outsource their tailoring.