100 Years of International Women’s Day- Eugenie’s story

Happy 100th International Women’s Day

This is the last in the series celebrating our superfine fine ladies. We were in Madagascar yesterday where we met the lovely Henriette and we remain there today to meet Eugenie.

Eugenie is the co-ordinator of  Ny Tanintsika Silk project in Madagascar as recently featured on BBC2 in ATTENBOROUGH AND THE GIANT EGG.  The project is part of wider efforts to conserve the ancient forests of Madagascar and is  supported by the charity FEEDBACK MADAGASCAR

Ny Tanintsika’s project was set up to revitalize the silk industry in the Amoron’i Mania, south central region of Madagascar with the aim of increasing wild silk production while conserving the tapia forests. The projects benefits the poorest within the community especially the women who are involved in silk production

The village artisans are supported through all the stages of silk production and its transformation into different products, right through to marketing support and sales and a annual target to replant the tapia is set for each village.

I first came across these ladies 3 years ago and when I heard their story I reached one conclusion, I had to be involved!

As we spoke it dawned on me that the survival of both this textile will depend on the conservation of the ancient  forests, unless the ancient forest of Madagascar are conserved it will not be possible to harvest the wild silk from those forest. We concluded if the community continue to earn an income from the silk they collect it will be in their interest to conserve these ancient forests our challenge therefore is to enable the community to bring their silk products to the market.

As you will see from the documentary, the women and sometimes children go out everyday to find the cocoons from which the silk thread is woven and it takes them several hours a day  to collect enough cocoons to produce just one scarf in fact Eugene told me that they women produce one scarf per month by hand and they rely on the forest to get the amazing dyes they use on the fabric.

Silk is very important in the Malagasy way of life and here at Ethnic Supplies  we bring you some of the accessories made from this silk.

TO SUPPORT OUR WORK AND THAT OF THE CHARITY FEEDBACK MADAGASCAR PLEASE BUYING ONE OF OUR SCARVES AND BAGS FROM THE SILK PROJECT