Cooperative brings Vietnamese brocade to the world

Founded in 2010, Hoa Tien Brocade Craft Village Cooperative (Hoa Tien village, Chau Tien commune, Quy Chau district, Nghe An province) is the passion of Ms. Sam Thi Bich to preserve and develop the traditional cultural identity of the Thai people, while contributing to increasing income for women here.

There was a time when Hoa Tien Cooperative's operations were sluggish because it had to compete with products from China. However, with the enthusiasm and desire to develop the traditional weaving profession, the Board of Directors of the Cooperative researched and realized that the reason why Hoa Tien was increasingly difficult was due to backwardness in production.

Production tools are too rudimentary, the source of fiber materials is not guaranteed, the designs are simple and unattractive, the product colors are not durable and lack uniformity...

The leaders of the cooperative have cooperated with local authorities, asked for capital support and borrowed more capital from banks to develop production. The cooperative has trained households to understand the techniques of planting and harvesting strawberries properly...

Members of Hoa Tien Cooperative are weaving brocade.

Instead of manual dyeing, the cooperative invests in machinery and transfers dyeing technology to members to help improve the quality of natural dyeing for products. Therefore, the cooperative's products maintain their durability and beauty. In particular, with this method, the wastewater after dyeing and weaving contains almost no toxic substances harmful to the environment and human health.

Not stopping there, the cooperative also focuses on creating new designs and new products to suit consumer tastes. The cooperative participates in handicraft fairs nationwide to connect with businesses and create outlets for its products.

Up to now, the cooperative has built a sustainable brocade value chain, attracting many projects and domestic and foreign enterprises to support production development. The cooperative's products are not only sold domestically but also exported abroad in large quantities.

Bring brocade far and wide

Hoa Tien is known as one of the most famous and oldest brocade weaving cradles of the Thai people in Nghe An province. Thai girls are taught the craft of weaving by their mothers. Growing mulberry trees, raising silkworms, reeling silk, weaving, and embroidering are the jobs that they are all very proficient at as a guarantee of maturity.

They often make their own dresses, blankets, cushions, scarves, etc. to serve themselves and their families.

Workers of Hoa Tien Cooperative are weaving brocade for export.

Ms. Sam Thi Tinh shared that she has sought to promote brocade products with traditional cultural values to domestic and international markets by bringing Hoa Tien Cooperative's products to many online channels, introducing them to domestic and foreign customers.

In 2015, following her mother's example, she opened a brocade shop in Hanoi, with the English trading name: Hoa Tien Brocade.

This is an important step to promote the traditional products of the homeland and find outlets for the products, helping people earn more income to cover their living expenses. From there, the Hoa Tien brocade brand will expand further through tourism and trade activities, linking with traditional brocade weaving products from cooperatives and ethnic groups in many other localities.

Not only stopping at the domestic market, in September 2022, Ms. Sam Thi Tinh registered to participate in displaying a booth introducing brocade products on the sidelines of the ASEAN Traditional Textile Workshop (TTAS), hosted by the host country Malaysia, held in the capital Putrajaya. Here, Hoa Tien booth sold many products.

From here, Hoa Tien brocade products began to be "exported" to many places around the world.

Currently, brocade products under the Hoa Tien Brocade brand are available in many major cities in the country and sold in France, Germany, Japan, Laos, etc.

The average income of women in the cooperative is from 1.5 to 2.5 million VND/month. The estimated annual revenue of the cooperative is 500 million VND.

SOUTH

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