PHOTO: Mary van Balen
I visited the Baan Kuhn Pranee project to purchase intricately woven bamboo baskets by women employed by the SUPPORT project in Phanat Nikhom District. On July 21, 1976, Queen Sirikit of Thailand established Supplementary Occupations and Related Techniques, popularly known as SUPPORT. For many years, the Queen had established cottage industries using her own money, enabling women living in rural villages and on farms to work from home or near home. The women were taught Thai crafts in danger of being lost. The results are baskets and fabrics of top quality and unique patterns and style. These women are paid a fair wage and are able to help raise their families out of a life of poverty.
In some of the SUPPORT projects, women with handicaps are taught the fine crafts giving them, as the Queen said, a chance at raising their self-value as well as earning a living.
In Phanat Nikhom, populated by Thai, Chinese, and Lao people, diversity of cultures is celebrated in the project. Baskets woven in styles of each culture are made and sold there.
The baskets I purchased are unlike any I have seen in other markets. Expensive, they are well worth the price, not only for the product itself, but also for support of the women and the goals of SUPPORT.
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