Bag-making

When we realized that the mothers of the children at our Family Care Center were not able to find work, though we had taken in their pre-school children, we requested Fair Trade in Cebu to hold a seminar and work shop in making bags out of used rice, chicken-feed, pig-feed and dog food bags. These are the plastic laminated sacks, which in this country are printed in bright colors.

Here is an example of the animal-feed sacks we use for the bag making.

The women cut the sacks in strips, which are folded 4 times before weaving starts. Here Gina is brading the handles.

Jeniffer is a big help to the program, as she has set up contacts where we can buy these sacks at an affordable price. Einar from Norway is helping any way he can.

The training lasted for two days, and the women started making the bags. Through the first few months, the quality wasn’t so good, and we had to ask them many times to re-do the bags, so that they were evenly weaved and would pass the quality inspection. After much practice, we now seldom have to ask them to re-do the bags, and they are happy to have perfected their skills.

We promoted these bags everywhere, using them ourselves, and the many volunteers we have from the Scandinavian countries, England and Canada, purchase them and bring them home to give them as gifts to family and friends.

Our Canadian volunteers brought bags home to give to family and friends

Abi brought bags with her to Europe to promote the livelihood program

Twenty-four more mothers were added to the bag-making group, and they were all given training through Fair Trade's instructors.

If you are interested in purchasing these bags, please do write us at info@riseabove-cebu.org, and mark your email “livelihood – bag-making”.