To revive businesses and sustain livelihoods, the Agency for the Promotion of Indigenous Crafts (APIC) conducted tailoring training for the owners and salespeople of the craft market affected by the pandemic. The agency trained 15 female participants in tailoring traditional and religious craft items. The two-week training which started at the beginning of the month ended today.
Twenty-five-year-old Pema Yangzom from Trashigang currently works in the craft market. She has been working as a salesgirl for a year.
She couldn’t continue her education after class X. She says without proper education and due to lack of skills, it’s difficult to sustain. As the crafts market depends mostly on tourists, Pema says life has become more challenging during the pandemic without any tourists in the country. She is hopeful of earning a better income by making the best of the knowledge and skills acquired from the training.
“Before the pandemic, tourists used to come and buy our products and our business was doing well. But now due to the pandemic, our business is affected. The agency has trained us to sew religious items. I think this will help us self-sustain in times of the pandemic. Within these five days, we learned a lot.”
The participants are trained to sew various religious items. They are now looking forward to a better market for their products.
“Before the training, I didn’t even know how to use a sewing machine. I now got the skills through the training and I am really happy,” said Tshering Yangzom, another trainee.
“We mostly keep thangkas at our shop. So, it’s important to learn to sew such items. That’s why I took part in the program,” said Rinzin Wangmo.
The program is a part of the Cottage and Small Industry’s capacity building flagship programme. It aims at improving and enhancing the skills of artisans in traditional crafts by providing new and innovative product development programmes.
“One of the aims is to engage those craft vendors who are badly affected by the pandemic. We all know tourism is badly affected by the pandemic and no doubt that our craft vendors are the most affected business in the country. In a way, we’re trying to revive and improve their business by providing life skill training,” said Pema Lodey, Senior Programme Officer with APIC.
The agency also plans to provide training to the next batch of trainees of the craft market by the end of this month.
Kelzang Choden
Edited by Phub Gyem
