06/22/2007

Since peace has returned to Cambodia’s eastern highlands, the Bunong have begun to resurrect their weaving skills. A small number of older women are back at their looms, creating multicolored scarves, skirts, trousers, blankets and shoulder bags in time-honored tribal patterns. They are also teaching their craft to the next generation of Bunong women.

RI has been instrumental in this weaving revival. After helping Bunong families relocate from refugee camps to their native villages, RI responded to requests for help in restarting the textile craft by supplying a number of “backstrap” looms. RI introduced the weavers to more sophisticated yarns, helped them obtain microloans and created weaving cooperatives.

RI also financed a trip that allowed a group of Bunong weavers to visit weavers and markets in neighboring Thailand and Laos. Most recently we have helped convince the Smithsonian Institution to include a delegation of Bunong weavers in the 2007 Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.