In my previous blog post I talk to Chantha from Angkor Bullet Jewellery about his life and what inspired him to start his social business, and in this blog post, we are visiting the workshop to see how the bullet casings are melted and transformed into jewelry.
Angkor Bullet Jewellery is a social enterprise founded by Chantha Thoenun. Chantha’s mother passed away when he was 4 years old and his father was killed by Khmer Rouge when he was 8, so Chantha went to live with his grandparents.
If you travel a lot, or you just need to sleep during daytime, you know that a good sleep mask is priceless. I have tried so many sleep masks through the years, but I have never managed to find one that ticked all the boxes. So I decided to make my own, and together with the women at CWSG we started working on the best sleep mask ever.
When it comes to kitchen decor, tea towels are really underrated. The right towels can add a dash of pastel-colored shabby chic or French country kitchen and work wonders for your kitchen.
LWH (Local Women’s Handicrafts) is a textile and handicraft collective in Nepal founded by Nasreen Sheikh. Nasreen is a former sweatshop child worker and she has experienced the dark side of the garment industry on her own body, being forced to work 12-15 hours a day.
Weavers Project was started by the social enterprise Sonas World with the purpose of creating sustainable economic growth in rural communities in Cambodia. Cambodia has a strong tradition of weaving, but it is a dying craft due to the competition from cheaper, factory-made fabric as well as the declining interest among the young generation of learning the skills of weaving.
Silk is such a beautiful and versatile material, and I knew from the beginning, that I wanted to sell silk products in my shop, but when I was looking for suppliers, I was shocked to find out how silk is typically made. Did you know that the traditional way to produce silk is to boil the cocoons with the silkworms inside? Many hundreds of silkworms are boiled alive, just to make one scarf! That seemed unnecessary to me (what a waste of silkworms!), so I started looking for alternative ways of making silk, and I found out about peace silk/ahimsa silk.
I found CWSG (Cambodia Women’s Support Group) online, when I was looking for suppliers for my shop. In the beginning, I was just looking to purchase products off the shelf from the group, but as we got to know each other, I soon realized that I wanted to expand the level of collaboration to also include design development for my own brand.
Sylvia from Chimmuwa is also launching a retreat for traumatized women. She offers the women support and a safe place to stay and help them get the professional treatment they need.
Chimmuwa is a part of Borderline Collective in Mae Sot. The group was founded by Sylvia, who has many years of experience from various NGO projects, and Nor Nor, who is the group’s designer. The purpose of Chimmuwa is to create job opportunities for young refugee and migrant women from Myanmar. These women often have difficulties finding employment and thus have a high risk of being exploited in poorly paid jobs or as victims of trafficking.
After Hong Kong, I went to Mae Sot in Thailand, close to the border to Myanmar. Here, I was meeting with Borderline Collective, which is an organization supporting migrant and refugee women from Myanmar. The women are organized in smaller autonomous collectives based in the small villages along the border.