Weaving Through the Pandemic

A discussion on Impact of COVID 19 on the artisans of Asia

They make your clothes, they make our pots and pans, they are the ones who carefully weaved that treasured basket you have in your living room and which others admire when they visit you. They make all of this with their hands. Like all of us, they are affected by the spread of the pandemic, just that they are affected a bit too much for them the pandemic impacted their livelihood. Yes, we are talking about artisans and makers across the Asian sub-continent. The global pandemic has brought a halt to commerce and travel - a big source of income for artisans to a complete halt thereby impacting the livelihoods of these artisans.

Different initiatives have been launched by civil society groups as well as brands. We wanted to tell you a bit more about what some of our Green Collective family members are doing in order to help their maker communities and empower them during these tough times.

Speakers

Stephanie Pandji - Stephanie is the founder of The Handmade Romantics and has been championing Indonesian crafts by working closely with craft communities across Indonesia.

Emi Weir - Emi is based out of Laos and has been working closely with artisanal communities in Laos while building Ma Te Sai.

Lakshya Arora - Lakshya of Desihangover is based in India and works with traditional artisan cobblers who have lost their livelihood to the mass production revolution.