Before the HWMPC was organized, we were a loose group doing hand weaving, knitting, crocheting, wood carving and silver craft. Most of the women are from the indigenous tribes of the Cordillera, the husbands were employed in the Mining areas. When the mines closed, many of the men were laid off and their husbands had an off and on jobs as contractual workers. In the early seventies, our handicraft
s were fast selling commodities because of the influx of local and foreign tourists that frequent the cool weather of Baguio City all year round. military bases were also frequent visitors to the city. Baguio was a tourist destination and the women were enjoying the brisk sales of their crafts. However, in 1990, Baguio and the surrounding areas suffered the big earthquake which destroyed many of the buildings and structures in the city. Baguio was in ruins, and businesses were at a standstill. It was also in the 1990’s when the American bases started to pull out of the country. It was a struggle for the women to sell the remaining crafts. They really had a hard time turning them into cash so they can feed their families. There were very few visitors who would dare come up to the city because they feared another earthquake. After a year of trying to sell their wares, in 1991, Mt. Pinatubo erupted, and was considered the biggest eruption in the Philippines. Pinatubo was only three hours drive away from Baguio. The disaster the volcanic eruption did was even worse than the earthquake. It made travel time from Baguio to Manila between six to 12 hrs. Tourists were no longer visiting Baguio and worse the American bases closed and all personnel and staff left the country. With the series of bad fortunes, life became harder and harder for the people in the cordilleras and the women were most affected. But many of the women in the handicraft business did not lose hope. Because of the need to produce, sell and feed our families. We had bonded ourselves together in 1996 and formed the Women’s Multipurpose Cooperative. We believe that together, we will have a stronger voice to bring out our concerns to the government, most especially in assisting us to promote our products through organized trade fairs. Together we can cut cost in transporting our products to Manila, also through booth rentals and other expenses by sharing expenses. The objective of the Cooperative is ideal for the women, bonding together for a common purpose, thrift and saving, product development, skills training and loans etc. However, the Cooperative had a slow take off at the beginning since the money was so tight and the women can contribute only so much for their capital shares. Besides the women needed more education on how a Cooperative works. Nonetheless the Cooperative continued to assist the women especially in the promotions of their products, material sourcing, inviting the government agencies who can help in conducting seminars and forums on “how to do business”, product development, costing and pricing, attending trade exhibits etc. Most of the produce of the Artisans were sold locally and through institutional buyers based in Manila. Export orders were very minimal. Then in 2003, through the assistance of TTV USA, our Paper craft Products founds its way into the US Market. Since then more and more women were trained on how to do paper weaving so we can cope with the TTV Orders. Today, it’s not only the women who are involved in the paper crafts, but also their husbands, the college students who make them after school and during school breaks. We have now a total of 20 groups located in the 10 different Barangays (communities) in and around Baguio with a total of more than 200 artisans. The impact of this livelihood has created jobs to the communities, given added income to the families, were able to send their children to college and somehow their lifestyle has also changed for the better. We encourage our group to watch for new recycled items and develop new recycled things. Because we believe that continous innovation is the key to a better sales. With more and more other groups trying to copy the same products we make not only locally but even in other asian countries, we always want to be one step ahead of everyone.
