This non-profit venture supports Burmese refugee women and women displaced from Burma to earn a fair price for their handmade and traditionally loomed textile products. Our organisation Women for Education, Freedom and Textiles trades as Weftshop. These women are from various ethnic groups of Burma who produce some of the finest textiles in South East Asia. They have fled persecution by the Burmese military regime, and handicrafts are one of the few accessible means to earn money safely.

“The bags and children’s clothes I make on my treadle machine help me support 15 people”
– Yah Mi (pictured above)

“Weaving for Weftshop helps me learn about my culture and provides for my family.”
– Naw Naw (also pictured above)

Buying Weftshop’s handwoven textiles and handmade products helps support women and their families to buy nutritious food, medicine and other essential household goods so important to achieving a basic standard of living. It also helps Weftshop run product development and marketing workshops with the support of women’s groups on the Thai-Burma border. The purpose of these workshops is to help refugee women artisans develop the skills and knowledge needed to create more marketable products for selling in Australia. Our aim is to support cottage industry capable of delivering sustainable income while also promoting traditional textile skills.

Weftshop’s collection of products ranges from natural dye textiles and weaving in the form of scarves, shawls, table runners, cushions, bags and wall hangings, to children’s clothing, dolls and pieces of beautiful woven and embroidered fabric in a variety of colours.

Background on the Thai-Burma border refugee situation
There are approximately 140,000 ethnic-minority refugees, who have fled human rights abuses in Burma, living in Thailand’s nine camps along the Thai-Burma border. They are dependent on subsistence-level humanitarian assistance and the majority have limited or no means to provide for themselves and their families. They are dependent on nutritionally inadequate monthly rations, and there is a lack of space in crowded camps for refugees to produce vegetables and livestock. As a result, between 5–40 per cent of refugees seek work outside camp confines to earn enough money to buy fresh food and other essential household goods such as clothing and medicine, exposing them to greatly increased levels of vulnerability and personal risk. Any refugee caught outside his or her camp is considered an illegal migrant and liable to arrest and deportation.

As security is a well-known barrier to women’s livelihoods, home-based cottage industry can provide income in a safe environment, while also allowing women to care for children.

Many refugees have been forced to live in camps on the Thai-Burma border for as many as 17 years with no durable solution in sight because of Thai Government policy to continue to forbid refugees the right to work. The lack of economic opportunity often results in increases in domestic violence and alcohol abuse. Women also face particular risks such as resorting to harmful behaviour to survive, including prostitution and trading sex for food. Livelihood strategies, such as income-generation training, food-for-work programs, self-employment opportunities and business start-up programs, can play an important part in reducing these risks.