Starter Kit. Idea 65 of 500. Cluster 3
Beeralu lace from the south coast, on scarves, skirts, tops and table linen, made and sold in Galle Fort to its visitors, as the island of Burano near Venice does with its own lace
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Find two or three Beeralu lace makers on the south coast who would make scarves, tops and table linen to a shared design, and agree a price per piece that pays them properly. Ask a shop or a cafe inside Galle Fort to give one maker a seat to work in view of the visitors. Put the maker's name on every card. The proof is the first week of pieces sold to visitors who watched them being made.
- Who pays first
- A visitor walking through Galle Fort who stops to watch a maker at work and buys the scarf she has just finished.
- What leaves today
- Visitors leave with souvenirs made elsewhere; a piece made in the Fort, by a named maker, keeps the craft and the money on the coast.
Ask first
- National Crafts Council. Ask whether lace makers can register as craftspeople and join its fairs or shops.
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask what permission a maker needs to work and sell inside a shop in the Fort.
Check before you spend
Confirm the shop owner's permission for a maker to work on the premises, any trade licence the council asks for, and fair written terms with each maker.
Find out these three numbers
- What price will a visitor pay for a lace scarf?
- How many pieces can one maker finish in a week?
- Which shops in the Fort would give a maker a seat?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt. Chapter Fourteen
"souvenirs that are actually from here"
Visitors pay more for a thing made where they stand, by someone they watched make it.
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.