1 / 21

Wonders of Wenceslao Bags

Wonders of Wenceslao Bags. An ecological livelihood project for women living in Wenceslao Resettlement Community, Pampanga, Philippines. Pampanga. The Philippines is a country of islands… 7,000 and still counting… Pampanga is a province on the largest island, Luzon.

josie
Download Presentation

Wonders of Wenceslao Bags

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Wonders of Wenceslao Bags An ecological livelihood project for women living in Wenceslao Resettlement Community, Pampanga, Philippines.

  2. Pampanga The Philippines is a country of islands… 7,000 and still counting… Pampanga is a province on the largest island, Luzon.

  3. In 1992 the people of Pampanga witnessed one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century – that of Mt Pinatubo. Infrastructure including roads were destroyed, villages were buried and thousands of people lost everything. Today they are still rebuilding their lives……

  4. In the years following the volcano there were heavy rains which dislodged soil from the mountains. As it moved downwards it mixed with the ash fall to form a heavy cement like substance called lahar. In the mid 1990’s further destruction was caused by heavy floods of lahar which buried more villages, blocked drainage systems and caused extensive flooding causing people to abandon their homes.

  5. Thousands of displaced and homeless people lived in temporary shelters while trying to get their lives back together again. A variety of international and national agencies were involved in the relief and rehabilitation work. Among the former was a Spanish agency – Manos Unidas. In partnership with a local non government agency – the Social Action Center of Pampanga, SACOP, they established resettlement villages.

  6. Today Wenceslao resettlement village is home to 528 families all of whom have suffered loss and destruction in their lives as a result of the volcano. The rehabilitation work is still on going.

  7. Among the residents of Wenceslao are the women who form WoW. They are all neighbours who live within 5 minutes walk of each other…………

  8. The juice pack project is the result of some creative thinking. There is a huge on going need to develop livelihoods for people. A community meeting surfaced the idea of trying to make bags from the many juice packs which litter the place. Also living within the community were some women with sewing machines, we had the support of a volunteer to help with marketing and on going development. We also had regular input from a SACOP community worker. The mix of all these resulted in WoW bags…………………….

  9. So what happens to produce a WoW bag? Firstly some women collect the used juice packs. They get them from hospitals, schools or from the road where people have discarded them. Opring goes about on her bicycle collecting. Its hard work as it is hot…..

  10. The packs are then washed and sorted by size and colour. Other women and their family members help with this task. They also sort the packs into different colours and brands.

  11. The packs are then delivered to the home of Maritess where they are stored.

  12. Other supplies needed for the bags like the thread, zips, trimming for the edges, buckles etc all have to come from Manila. This is a 3 hour + trip each way. It is all purchased in a huge market called Divisioria and then brought back to the province by public transport…..

  13. As we receive orders some women prepare what is needed to make them so that the others can then collect the right amount of materials and in the right colour combinations. With the supplies sorted out the women of Wenceslao are ready to start sewing your bags…

  14. The women work from their own homes therefore ensuring minimal disruption to family routines. They can decide how many bags they wish to make and when they want to make them. When the order is finished they are quality checked before leaving the resettlement.

  15. They are collected by tricycle, a popular and efficient form of transport in the Philippines. They are taken to the SACOP office for final quality control and preparation for posting.

  16. The final stage of their journey is back on to the tricycle for delivery to the shipping office.

  17. The shipping office is where the fun starts as we try to fill each box to the maximum weight allowed, 25 kg. It takes a long time to pack as we are careful to use every millimeter of space…… using all means necessary!

  18. Then our lovely ecological bags arrive to you. We hope that their colours and character brighten your day and that you enjoy using them.

  19. We believe that you are buying more than a bag from WoW, as our way of working is also representative of a fairer deal for smaller producers. We thank you for your support and your interest in our lives and our situation. We look forward to an on going partnership with you and your friends as we work together to provide the basics for our families and to remove plastic from our environment.

  20. Maraming maraming salamat sa inyong lahat! Thank you…

More Related