Presenting: Ikat for Sustainability and Women Empowerment

Ridha first joined CCD-NL as part of the fundraising team. Over time, however, she became increasingly invested in the stories of the Ikat artisans with whom the foundation works. By talking to different Ikat weaving groups – and especially, a group of young female artisans in NTT (i.e.  Ina Manenu) - she began to have a clearer understanding of what their wants and their needs were. She noticed, for instance, that many artisans were in fact quite aware of the harmful consequences of Ikat weaving practices that relied heavily on artificial dyes. However, what they lacked was the knowledge that would enable them to break away from such practices. Similarly, it caught her attention that these women struggled to make their products marketable. In other words, while they used their Ikat expertise to produce cloths, they would seldom transform these cloths into other, more marketable items such as clothing garments – which, from a marketing perspective, can be more easily sold. 

What is important to understand here is that many of these artisans’ livelihoods depend on Ikat, which makes their inability to translate their inherited expertise into a sustainable stream of income, particularly problematic. Moreover, this - in combination with other factors such as the generational knowledge gap and environmental degradation, contributes to the endangerment of a precious cultural tradition that is already on the brink of extinction. By getting to understand the specific struggles that these artisans face, Ridha identified the need for what is now the ISWE project.

The ISWE project was initially launched as a trial project under the title Training for Trainers earlier in July 2021 and lasted until August of the same year. Being a pilot project, it was relatively small in terms of its scale and focused primarily on providing training for the production of natural dyes - namely, brown, black and red dyes, all of which were fairly new skills for the participants. The said participants included female Ikat artisans from the Ina Manenu group as well as trainers from the Wehor Hadomi group.  All in all, the feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive with participants reporting a pleasant and fruitful experience where they acquired new knowledge and skills. Perhaps the best part was the fact that these artisans were able to share this knowledge with their peers - an essential step towards preserving Ikat in the long run, says Ridha. 

As the previously mentioned focal points of the ISWE training program are fairly broad, each one of these consist in turn of further practical skills training which fall under the umbrella of these larger themes. Regarding Natural Ikat production, for instance, this will entail training sessions focused on how to produce natural dyes, particularly those which artisans do not yet know how to produce. Furthermore, Entrepreneurial skills entails training sessions focused on e-commerce training whereby artisans learn to promote their products online as well as to make tailored designs that are more marketable to broader markets. At last, Ikat textiles upcycling consists of training focused on the creative reuse of waste created by Ikat production. 

This training is set to empower female Ikat artisans through entrepreneurial training that shall revive the Ikat industry and consequently improve these artisans’ livelihoods. In turn, training targeted at raising environmental awareness, fostering discussion, knowledge-sharing, creative 

problem-solving and the adoption of eco-friendly Ikat practices, will ultimately contribute to  its longevity and the preservation of its unique qualities that rely on natural production practices. 

Moreover, key to the question of how this will be achieved are the stakeholders involved in the project - both locally and internationally. In addition to the great efforts made by Ridha and CCD-NL as a whole, it is through the cooperation and partnership of these various stakeholders that this training program is made possible. Here’s an overlook of the key stakeholders involved and their respective roles:

• Ina Manenu - a NTT-based Ikat artisan group led by Marsha Fattu, a young fashion designer from Rote-Ndao. The group consists of 6 artisans. 

• Wehor Hadomi - an Ikat artisan group, led by Selviana Boi Dao - a master weaver from Belu. This group has been an active partner of CCD-NL since 2019 and it has 4 members.

• Gunung Mako Weaving Cooperative (GMWC) - another Ikat artisan group, led by Syariat Tole - an experienced weaver and dye expert from Alor.  Syariat was raised with the Ikat tradition having weaved since the age of 7. There are 20 artisans in her group.

As a project that essentially came to life through its creator’s sheer desire to make a real impact, all evidence suggests that the ISWE will only continue to evolve and expand in a way that more women and artisans will continue to benefit from. As she explained how the initial pilot project came to be, and how her desire to see it materialize was her main motivation, Ridha’s drive as the leader of the ISWE project seems to be far from gone. When asked what she expects to achieve with the project, she answered: