REACHING GLOBAL MARKETS FROM A MOUNTAIN’S TOP
Kanlaya Karwsom is a single parent with two children and is a homeworker from the Lee District, Lamphun, in the northern mountainous area near Chiang Mai, Thailand. Abandoned by her husband, Kanlaya engaged in farming activities, but soon she realized she could not earn enough to support her family. Since she had a Vocational Competence Certificate, the newly established Telecentre in her District offered her a job as coordinator and administrative clerk. “I was good at typing on the typewriter, however, I never use a computer before and was afraid to break it. With the help of the Telecentre Manager, I gradually learned all kinds of ICT skills and became a trainer for my community.” Kanlaya’s dream was then to establish her small business, and if lucky enough, she has plan to create her own community’s brand besides gaining financial independence that would enable her to support her two kids.
“My community is very rich — we have our own culture, our won heritage, our own natural resources. We have our own specific & unique longan fruit tree. We have own specific cotton species which is the main raw material source for Northern part of Thailand. We are the main producer of all cotton to serve the needs of all the Northern fabric products in Thailand. But we have never claimed these for our community” said by Kanlaya, Lee district, Lampoon, North of Thailand.
Despite the refined quality and the demand for her hand-woven and embroidered Karen fabrics, Kanlaya found it extremely difficult to connect with geographically dispersed potential customers because her community is very far from the city. She was aware that with the opening of new international markets, she had to make the most out of new technologies and learn e-commerce and trading skills needed to promote her products abroad.
“We are hidden in Thailand’s mountainous region, most people are not even aware of our organically grown products and locally made handicrafts. But we exist!” At the beginning we just show or display our local design online then we have observed that the other world has better designs than us. So we start to learn more new design then adapt into our own design. Currently our group has made decision to get back to our own design, our heritage design to let our young generations to learn our heritage while they also can learn the new modern ones along the line”.
Driven by a strong motivation to open her own business, and her awareness of the potential of ICT Community Learning Centre in her district, Kanlaya started collaborating with Telecentre manager, Mr. Prasan Suksert, who is also the staff of the Local Administrative Bureau of Lee District. She learnt new ICT skills and e-commerce knowledge required for e- market to support all her products and her community’s products so that they are visible and saleable online ….since then her life has been dramatically changed….
“From an isolated lady to being a women leader, from a small farmer to being a farm leader, from a small homeworker to being a smart homeworker and entrepreneus as well as a leader.”
“ICT can help me a lot which I never imagine in my life before. Its most important contribution to me is that I can seek my own information, learn and practice skils by myself. I am surrounded by lots of natural resources such as longan, cotton, coffee, waterfall, tribal or indigenous people that are interested by the outsiders. But we never knew how to create more value added products from all these resources. Then my group and I started to learn and try things from the internet. We have found that our coffee is among the top variety in Thailand. We found that our cotton is the top quality in Thailand. We found that our longan is the most delicious in Thailand. We totally didn’t know before we used Internet because our community is very far. We just sell our raw materials and products to the middleman. Then we started to seek more training from all experts, we started to access relevant agencies which are supposed to take care of us, etc… then after we access ICT… we proof that we can make use of it to develop ourselves and our community”.
“Currently more outsiders are coming into our community because they have seen our stories and our natural resources. Many of them are curious to learn more about our community. The most important is that our community is the hometown of a core abbot of Northern, Thailand, Kra Ba Sri Wichai. E-Tourism, local tourism, religious tourism, cultural tourism are increasing our community’s visibility due to the promotion from ICT”.
Today, Kanlaya is the Chair of the Home Workers’ community and of 52 Social Development Networks in Lamphun. Her mission is to preserve her community’s knowledge, heritage and craftsmanship passed on for centuries from one generation to the other, and expose to the world the beauty of Karen’s hand woven and embroidered textiles. Her dream is to found a Lee District brand that can be associated to her community.
“ICT has made all miracles happening not just in my life but also my community’s too…” Kanlaya Karwsom, Lampoon, North of Thailand.
By: Sara Gabai and Kamolrat Intaratat