Our glasses distribution in Alor Island, East Nusa Tenggara

On June 11,  2016, Connect Indonesia was introduced to a  group of weavers in Alor island.  Alor (Indonesian: Pulau Alor) is the largest island in the Alor Archipelago and is one of the 92 officially listed outlying islands of Indonesia. It is located at the eastern Lesser Sunda Islands that runs through southeastern Indonesia, which from the west include such islands as BaliLombokSumbawaKomodo, and Flores.

The Gunung Mako weavers’ group is located in Alor Besar, about 1 km journey from Kalabahi, the largest town in the island.  The weavers’ group is led by Mrs Sariat Libana, a senior weaver who is truly passionate about the application of natural dye for the ikat cloth produced in the region.  Alor has been producing amazing ikat tenun textile for decades and like in many parts of Indonesia, ikat textile here is produced as part of their culture and tradition and use in many ceremonial activities.

We are extremely grateful to Mr Herlan Pongkapadang and his beloved wife Mery Mesah (who is in the traditional ikat textile business herself, managing a business called Murah Tenun Ikat NTT), has very kindly introduced the “Seeing is Believing” project to this region. Herlan & Mery started their ikat tenun business many years now and have travelled to a remote part of Timor and Flores to help provide new markets for traditional textiles produced in such remote part of Timor and Flores.  Our sincere gratitude to them both for making the project mission possible in such remote places like Alor, we can’t thank them enough for their contribution and devotion. Mery has also previously helped to connect the project to other weavers group in Kupang and beyond.

Our huge thanks to Olvira Ballo (our devoted project manager), who patiently helped sort out all the glasses and finalise with the distributions to many parts of Indonesia.  Our huge thanks to all our volunteers and donors who make this project possible and sustainable.

The lucky weavers are:

SAPIA MEDE,  49 MUHAMMAD LIBANA,  42 SUMINA TONU, 45 SOFARINA HARUNA, 51
MASITA LUMA,  50 DJOU UMAR  51 SARIPA GOMANG, 45 HELA RAHIM 50 LETI BAU, 43
NURJANA LABAN,  50 MURNI,  45 FATIMA BAHALAWAN, 50 BAI TUPONG, 41
SALMA USMAN,  43 AMINAH,  47 HADMINA UMAR, 40 AISYAH AHMAD, 41
SAMSIA BASIS,  49 YASIR LIBANA, 62 JAUHARI, 50 HADIJAH MUSTAFA, 41
HARIS KADIR, 52 HAJAR UMAR, 41 WATI USOLIN, 42

A few photos from the distribution with the happy weavers below.

 

 

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