Happy Weaves Handmade Artisan Handicrafts

Project title: Palawan cotton project

Focal landscape: Tagbanua community (Napsan, Palawan)

Recipient: Happy Weaves Handmade Artisan Handicrafts (In-charge: Rambie Lim)

UK Collaborator: Maria Cristina Martinez-Juan

Rambie Lim works as a market and product developer for Happy Weaves Handmade Artisan Handicrafts and is the current director of HABI: The Philippine Textile Council. She collaborates with Philippine craft communities to preserve traditional crafts while developing culturally sensitive contemporary items through co-creation, product development, and consultation with artisans. She also considers crafts as a way to empower artisans by enabling them to use their own design skills and locally available natural resources to promote inclusive economic growth through trade.

About the project

The aim of the Palawan cotton project is to learn more about the obstacles that a Tagbanua community in Napsan, Palawan is facing as they apply for ancestral domain status for their land. This project aims to meet their economic needs while also bridging communication gaps by developing and implementing a toolkit that will assess the opportunities for them to participate in the production and processing of cotton, a resource that grows wild in their forests but is currently underutilised for profit. We hope to answer the question of whether cotton farming and processing can become an economically viable and environmentally sustainable livelihood option for the Tagbanua community in Napsan, Palawan.