Artisan Training for Women in Madagascar

November is always a busy month in Maroantsetra. The weather starts to dry out and get hot, clove season is in full swing, the vanilla is freshly processed, the rice paddies need weeding and the market is filled with lychees. Idle conversation always involves multitasking in November, havesting produce in baskets, flicking cloves from their stems, tending fields or arranging sheets of produce to dry in the sun. As the money flows in from vanilla and cloves, Maroantsetra gets its annual economic bump and you can start to feel the pre-holiday buzz in the air.

The SEPALI team competes with the schedules and resources of busy subsistence farmers preparing their only cash crops of the year. Despite the normal November pressures, the SEPALI artisan team is busier than ever and has grown enough over the past few years to create their own November buzz. Their productivity as a group has more than doubled and their repertoire has grown in size and quality alike. The New York Now show in August opened the door for Mamy and Lalaina into the world of competitive international markets, professional product preparation, and chain of production. The insights they gained at the training informed the gorgeous collection of items that the team created this fall. They cranked out table runners, placemats, Makira Moons, brilliant raffia, panels, art pieces and more. They introduced two new species of silk this fall, Bombyx and Borocera, which are both proving to be soft and white and stunning. The team continues to work on the looms with the Ambassador’s grant that we won last year, diversifying our products by leaps and bounds.

To add to the November buzz, our team is also house-hunting. The lease on the property that we have maintained for the past four years is expiring and the owners will return to take it over. SEPALI directors Mamy and Lalaina are already investigating new homes for us and preparing to move our equipment, dye houses, drying houses, watchman house and staff over to a new place in December and January. While the move will be hard work, our artisan team is excited by the prospect of moving closer to town and the whole team is looking forward to getting settled into a more permadent location. The final push for this Global Giving project will help our artisans close out our house in Varingohatra and help us get settled in the next one for a whole new chapter!

Wish us luck! More soon, 

CPALI/SEPALI Team

A major component of our program is to find markets for the goods the artisans are making. That is easier said then done and this week two team members, Mamy and Lalaina, will travel to the US to attend a marketing program at the trade show, NY Now.  The program, "Market Readiness for Artisans" is put on by Aid to Artisans and Creative Learning.  It is well known in the field and is a weeklong introduction to what the team needs to know regarding product design, quality control, pricing to make their wild silk and raffia products acceptable on the NY scene.  Over the past week the US team has been working hard to put our best foot forward in hopes of attracting buyers and an import partner for SEPALI Madagascar. The problems we are having are rooted in the costs of shipping, Madagascar's isolation, the lack of good workshop conditions, equipment, and electricity, seasonal availability of cocoons, quality raffia and relatively high salaries that we pay. It has been tough to pull it all together - please keep your fingers crossed that buyers will order up a storm!  

Specifically, at the NY Now event we will be showing handbags, silk wall hangings, ringtail raffia ties, table runners and placemats as well as silk papers - Whew!  Mamy and Lalaina will visit with buyers and have the goods critiques.  Below are a selection of some of the products they will have critiqued!

We are all very excited.  Personally, I can't wait to see the team - stay tuned for the latest when I report after the show!

Links:

• Project website
• Tanana market site