Starter Kit. Idea 26 of 500. Cluster 2
Handloom weaving demonstrations and short courses
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Spend a morning with a handloom weaver and time one short demonstration: setting the warp, working the shuttle, finishing a strip. Then offer a 2-hour course to the nearest hotel's activities desk, with you handling bookings, and ask for a trial slot on its weekly list. Paid guests in the first week, and some of them buying cloth afterwards, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Hotel activity desks that need something indoor and authentic to sell guests on rainy afternoons, and the guests themselves.
- What leaves today
- Handloom cloth leaves as cheap metres; a course sells the weaver's skill and sends the guest to buy the cloth at a full price.
Ask first
- National Crafts Council. Ask which weaving villages they work with and whether short courses are supported.
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Ask whether a short weaving course can be recognised as training.
Check before you spend
That the weavers are paid fairly for teaching time, that looms are safe for beginners, and what the course certificate can honestly claim.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a visitor pay for a two-hour weaving lesson?
- How many looms can be spared for learners?
- Which guesthouses would send guests to a demonstration?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"Gem cutting. Cinnamon peeling. Handloom weaving. Mask carving."
Weaving done live in front of people sells the cloth along with the skill.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.