If you’ve visited our Living Crafts Centre on the banks of the Mekong, you know it’s a wonderful place to learn about Lao textiles and handicrafts. But Luang Prabang (city AND district) has so much more to offer… This is why Tailor-Made Artisan Tours will be available soon!
A couple of months ago, we mentioned that we were working on an exciting project involving… you! Wanna play designer? It is your time to shine! You can now design your very own bath mat! It’s basically a smaller version of our popular tapestry rug. Follow along for more details on this exciting take on the DIY concept!
The Village Weavers Project is a series of initiatives that create economic opportunities for artisans in rural locations around Laos. We decide which villages to work with in a few different ways. Sometimes, it comes through Public Private Partnerships. This is how our collaboration with the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) started three years ago. Read this interview with Ock Pop Tok’s (OPT) Co-Founder and Executive Director, Veomanee Douangdala, to learn more.
Did you ever wonder what goes into the price of an artisan made product? In the price of the products we make, in collaboration with artisans around Laos, we account for the cost of raw materials and fair wages for the artisans, but that’s not all… Can you guess what else comes into play?
Did you ever stroll through a market during your travels and wonder if the product you were about to buy was really handmade in the country you were visiting? Rest assured that when buying from Ock Pop Tok, you buy a product (hand)made in Laos from start to finish. Let’s have a look at the production process of artisan products Made in Laos.
Did you ever wonder who made the products you buy? Rest assured that when buying from Ock Pop Tok, you buy an artisan made product. And your purchase not only helps these artisans make a living from traditional crafts but also supports the preservation of local culture. Let’s have a look at the faces behind your handicrafts…
Meet Ramzia Khorami and Maryam Omar, two vanguards bringing Afghan jewellery and Silk Road-era crafts to the contemporary global marketplace. Ramzia handcrafts Afghan jewellery using traditional techniques. Maryam manages Turquoise Mountain’s Design Center (listen to the previous episode featuring the organization). This is a rare opportunity to hear about the country’s burgeoning crafts and design sector directly from Afghan women.
How do you introduce ‘start-up’, entrepreneurial thinking to a 400-year old artisan community? In Bagru, the hub of Rajasthani block printing, Jeremy Fritzhand tells us that a start-up mindset is critical to growing the industry and “putting creative power back in the hands of the artisans.” In this episode of Radio Ock Pop Tok, Jeremy discusses he and a group of forward-thinking women, along with the help of the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative (CIPRI) joined forces to start Mahila Print, a new way of protecting and licensing indigenous designs.
What is “ethical jewelry”? What is fairly mined, or fairmined, gold? In this episode, renowned jewelry designer Pippa Small takes us inside artisan studios in Kabul, Yangon and Amman, shares her insights on the meaning of ethical jewelry and discusses the importance and value of collaborating with artisans in their home communities. Pippa Small is dedicated to building a conscientious and ethical marketplace.
Why is Myanmar difficult terrain for artisans? Plastic upcycling genius Peter Pau Son, founder of Shin Thant Plastics, and Ulla Kroeber, co-founder and lead designer at Hla Day, a crafts and design organisation in Yangon, helps us understand the challenges of doing business in Myanmar.
Women’s empowerment is a core value of our organization, so this year we chose to partner with Lao Solidarity and their Lao Teen Girls Project.
In February, Ock Pop Tok was invited by the Asian Development Bank to help with a poverty reduction project focused on building the artisan industry in Mon State in Myanmar.
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