Pua Kumbu Community Project consists of Iban women who are coming from or living at Rumah Gare, Sg. Kain, Kapit, Sarawak. The weaving traditions in the Iban community has been traced back to centuries ago but the weaving tradition has not been developed to be a cottage industry. This project aims to bring the knowledge and skill of the present weavers to a higher level so cottage industry based on the weaving of Pua Kumbu can be developed. This project also intend to continue to create employment for the rural Iban community range from weaving activities, planting of dyes plants, distributions of products and hosting visitors at the longhouse for workshops and training.

Although the women are skillful weavers and producing unique and beautiful textile, they have not access a proper market platform. Thus, the weavers have been weaving for middle parties who commercialized their Pua Kumbu with profitable returns but the weavers are receiving only minimal compensations to their hard labour, valuable knowledge and skill. The project therefore, established focusing on:

• Addressing the constraints and identifying opportunities for value chain upgrading in Pua Kumbu productions, marketing and distributions.
• Creating an efficient structure to improve the productions of Pua Kumbu to a higher quality product.
• Conserving indigenous knowledge and skill of Pua Kumbu weaving with women weavers for sustainability of Pua Kumbu weaving traditions and productions.

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Telephone: +60 12 518 0380