A program in Papua New Guinea is helping poor women use a traditional hand-weaving technique to make money and promote PNG culture overseas.
It is helping turn Papua New Guinea's traditional shoulder bags — known as bilums — from everyday item to fashion phenomenon.
Maria Kalap, women's business co-ordinator with the PNG Government's Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation, said the Australian-funded program aimed to lift women out of poverty by harnessing the skills they already had.
"They don't have to go to a school or a university to learn to make or weave bilum, they have been making it and it's part of their life," she said.
Bilums are usually made by older women who live in poor villages and settlements.
They were originally made from natural fibres, such as hand-spun, dried leaves, but the weavers are now using colourful acrylic fibre to create fashion items.
They are being promoted as a fashion item because the Australian Government engaged the International Trade Centre (ITC), a United Nations and World Trade Organisation agency, to find ways of helping poorer PNG women make money.
Torek Farhadi, from the ITC, said improving and promoting bilum weaving was an obvious way to increase the women's income.
"In their handcraft, we found a goldmine and this goldmine really is the bilum that they make," he said.
"These bilum bags are part of the culture and heritage of PNG."
Marketing the bilums to retailers in developed countries is not straightforward, because the women do not produce them to a set schedule or make items of uniform quality.
"Each bilum is made by a different woman so each bilum is different, it has to be sold as a different item," Mr Farhadi said.
Over the last two years, bilum weavers from across PNG have been forming cooperatives and joining a new national organisation, the Bilum Export Promotion Association.
Torek Farhadi said they can now make contracts with overseas retailers and weave their bags for specific orders.
"The main point is that money goes back to the mamas and when they weave something they don't have to wait for their payment because they weave based on an order that's already given," he said.
"A lot of confidence has been built with the women because suddenly they noticed that this bilum they're making, that waits on the side of the road amongst the dust and the pollution, has a lot of value."
The women are also being trained in financial literacy and how to improve the bilums they make.
Bilum weaver Cecilia Kana lives in a Port Moresby settlement.
"When I make bilum and sell them I get some money and it helps my children and my family," she said.
"I can support my children's schooling, so it's good to make bilum, it gives me free money."
The program is also working with designers and retailers from Australia to find a market for the finished products.
The bags are already being sold in Australia and Europe and the women have been shown photos of western "mamas" carrying their bags.
Ms Kana said that it had provided enormous pride and motivation.
"When I see them carrying it, I'm happy to see bilums from PNG going overseas," she said.
"When I see them [pictures of the foreign women] I cry and I want make more to sell and send out."
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