Trip to the South - Part III

Two years ago, OSCE started Women's Resource Centers in the three cities that we visited; the centers have programs that are political, social and economic. These are funded for three years; next year the funding will run out and the centers are supposed to be self-sustaining. The PCVs in Goris and Kapan started when the WRCs started; Meghri did not get their paperwork done in time, so they did not get a PCV until this year. OSCE schedules meetings - in those cities, in Yerevan, halfway in between, or somewhere else - on a regular basis to review programming and to see if these NGOs are on the way to independence. The artisan projects are just one of the economic programs and are intended to be a way not only for the women who participate to make money but also for the NGO to make some money. But, I learned on the trip, the PCVs work more on overall NGO development than they do with the artisans. They don't have the time to nurture the artisans, and these artisans require nurturing. The intention of the trip was for Brian and me to introduce ourselves, assess their skills and motivation, and say that we would come back and work with them again. I worry, though, that Homeland Handicrafts is relying on the PCVs to be the point people at the local level, and that is not why they are there.

The Goris PCV was at Artbridge about eight months ago and she overheard Tim talk about his history in product development. One thing led to another and he agreed to help the women of the WRCs with product development and with finding markets for their products. Thus Homeland Handicrafts was born. With these WRCs and a separate additional group in Kapan as the core, Tim then reached out to PCVs in other regions (and/or they to him) and he found other talented artisans; in addition, some independent artisans found him.

Brian and I had prepared a little presentation with our backgrounds and experiences and then met the artisans, learned about them, looked at any products they brought to review, and answered questions. Homeland Handicrafts got off to a fast start with a holiday bazaar and then the airport order, so it created the expectation that more new products would be created and more orders forthcoming - and there may be some who believed that we would just buy everything they made and find a market for it. We didn't make any promises, but we did see some disappointment. We also saw the need for some systems and processes - for product review, materials ordering, product quality and consistency, inventory and payment. We did get some ideas for new products based on what they showed us, but that all has to be discussed - and I, for one, think we can't do anything else until we meet more potential customers and find out what they might want - that is, we need a strategy. So the job is shaping up to be somewhat different from what we expected - as I said in the last post, I'm not sure what that means.

What's interesting is that we talked to four completely different groups, perhaps reflective of the populations of the towns or maybe of the WRCs and how they did their outreach. The women in Meghri are all working women who do crafts as a hobby. There are women crocheting bags out of plastic bags (which would be Eco-friendly if they were recycled bags, but they are new, so there goes that marketing angle), and there are women who do "ribbon" embroidery. In Kapan, one set of women is all students at an art school; for Homeland Handicrafts they have made only products decorated with foam roses, but they have learned a variety of craft techniques in school. The other set are housewives who are all friends; they crochet. Actually in all of the places I think the artisans are friends or family members - that's how anyone gets hired or how anything gets done here. Goris was the only place where the women do their craft for livelihood - it is known as a town where almost all of the men work in Russia. Some men send money home, some come home to visit, some do neither. Crochet, knitting, embroidery, and there's also a male woodworker whose products are included in the line (and there are some products that combine wood and embroidery as a result). A lot of the products they recently worked on were on display at the Valentine's craft fair and will be available again this weekend; they're not all on the web site but they can be found on the Facebook Homeland Handicrafts group page. I'd like to see fewer seasonal/craft fair products and more "permanent collection," but that's another strategic discussion. One thing that we did come up with that everyone seems to like - a crocheted heart (one of the things that did sell at that fair), this time in the colors of the Armenian flag. I know I want one!