By Heang Sarim, CANDO
A great opportunity was given to nine NGO staff and community people from Cambodia to learn from the experiences of the Custom Made Crafts Center (CMCC) in the Philippines. The learning visit on crafts enterprise development took place last 9-13 June. Three staff members of the Cambodian NTFP Development Organization (CANDO), two from Village Focus International (VFI), and four Kreung indigenous people were eager to find out how CMCC helps their community people and how well the community people themselves manage their crafts enterprise.
With a willingness to learn from the crafts enterprise development experiences, we all had a lot of questions to ask our colleagues. And fortunately, we got valuable information and knowledge from their presentations, clarification and discussion. After returning from the learning visit, we now have a Road Map on Community Crafts Enterprise development in which staff know what and how to fulfill the needs of their community enterprises, while community people got ideas on how to improve their crafts enterprise. The fruitful five-day learning visit was done with effective activities and methodologies including lecture, presentation, group discussion, field visits, and community exchanges.
Day One: 9 June
That first morning, we received a friendly welcome from our colleagues Crissy Guerrero (NTFP-EP), Nola Andaya and Beng Camba (CMCC/NTFP-Task Force) and Arnie Ocampo (NTFP-EP). As soon as we entered the NTFP-EP office, we were so interested in CMCC’s Crafts and Coffee shop. We all looked carefully at the crafts products, organic coffee and honey for sale. And we appreciate the designs of their crafts which integrate both traditional and modern styles.
After self introductions and explanation of our expectations, our CMCC colleagues made a presentation on the CMCC’s Crafts Enterprise Development Program. CMCC is the marketing arm of NTFP-Task Force that provides enterprise development services to indigenous community-based crafts enterprises in different parts of the Philippines. CMCC not only provides trainings, but importantly mentoring, technical assistance and market access support to community enterprises. More importantly, we learnt that while CMCC provides the same things to all community crafts enterprises, they provide services in accordance with the real need, capacity and growth of the community enterprises. So their methodologies are flexible.
We ended the day watching the sunset from a boat cruising on the Manila bay, and continued discussions with Jenne de Beer, NTFP-EP director, and Arnie.
Day Two: 10 June
It was a long trip from Manila to Mindoro province to visit two community-based crafts enterprises. It took a day-long travel starting from early morning to evening, and we all experienced traveling by van, ship and motorbike. We first visited Bait Community in Mansalay. As soon as we arrived in the community, we saw some people waiting for us at their community entrance, and they gave us such a warm welcome that we felt like we were old friends. Before taking a rest, we had a short meeting with community members in order to introduce one another, and expressed our expectations of our visit. During dinner that night, we shared our stories and traditional songs.
Day Three: 11 June
The next morning, we met with the enterprise group called Sakahama led by Mr. Gerry Tupaz of KPLN, a partner organisation of NTFP-EP. We learned that Sakahama has grown from 11 members to 48 members. Sakahama is the common enterprise that emerged from three crafts groups from Bait, Mansalay and Bante. Representatives of Sakahama presented their organizational structures, production management and quality control, sale and marketing, and key points of regulation of the community enterprise.
Sakahama has a lot of experience in production, marketing and enterprise management. They have good systems in production, selling, and enterprise management. For instance, they have a clear organizational structure comprised of three main committees: finance, production, and marketing and sales.
They have also developed numerous products combining traditional designs with modern styles. However, they still face problems in product quality and late delivery. They have also encountered difficulties in sourcing local raw materials such as buri and thread and have thus resorted to buying those materials from the market.
There was also a presentation on Value Chain Analysis for community crafts enterprises in order to set appropriate and fair values for local community enterprise members and ensure environment and socio-cultural welfare. We also had a lot of discussions on community crafts enterprise management, production management, and sales and marketing. “They are also indigenous people like us, but they have done well for their enterprise management, and good system in quality control. They produce any product in accordance with order from buyer,” Mr. Ghiv Mao, Village NTFP Enterprise Facilitator, said. “We should learn from their experiences in order to improve our product quality and our enterprise performance,” Mao added.
Day Four: 12 June
On the fourth day, we had a chance to meet Maat Crafts Enterprise members. After a friendly welcome, representatives of the enterprise presented their enterprise background, organizational structure, production management, sales and marketing, and problems they have been encountering. Maat Enterprise’s products are mostly traditional baskets made of rattan, and bamboo furniture such as chairs. Some members showed us how they weave their traditional Tabud basket. While most of the enterprise members are men, the leader is a woman. Maat was established in 2006 with support by KPLN and NTFP-EP.
We noticed that Maat is not yet a strong enterprise. They used to have a problem in managing their money and their current major problems are product quality and late delivery. They need more support for equipment to produce better bamboo furniture. In addition, they do not have permission from the government to harvest rattan from their forest.
Day Five: 13 June
On the last day, we had a meeting with bamboo expert, Ms. Carmelita Bersalona from the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) and NTFP-EP colleagues at the NTFP-EP office. We learned a lot from her presentation on bamboo biology, bamboo trends, bamboo potential, bamboo products, bamboo’s market share in the world, and product development for the 21st century. We were surprised to hear that bamboo can also be used to produce oil and T-shirts. In particular, we had a good discussion on bamboo development and biology, especially on bamboo nursery and plantation.
We also had a chance to visit her Bamboo Show Room where there were many excellent bamboo product designs such as chairs, desk and bamboo flooring. Ms. Bersalona was very friendly and even welcomed our questions at lunch time.
This is a very good study visit that we have ever had before. We have learnt much from these five days, from both the indigenous community people who are the crafts enterprise producers and staff who provide support to community enterprises. We have learnt from community enterprise people how they organize and manage their enterprise operation including organizational management, product quality control and sales and marketing. We have also learnt a lot from CMCC’s experiences on how to support the development of community-based crafts enterprises, especially from their experiences in product design and development, and market access support for community enterprise’ products. We are starting our indigenous crafts enterprise development in Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri so these experiences and lessons will serve as a Road Map for us to move forward in the next three years and beyond. We all would like to appreciate and thank the efforts of NTFP-EP colleagues and community enterprises members for this fruitful study visit.
Heang Sarim, Executive Director, Cambodia NTFP Development Organization
Village Three, Labanseak, Banlung, Ratanakiri province, Cambodia
Tel: 855-75-974 819, Email: candontfp@camintel.com
