A new Home for Mama Ernie and Her Weavers

Earlier this year, we started construction for our 5th Rumah SukkhaCitta.
This time in Flores, East Indonesia.

Denica (left) with our community of weavers near Maumere, Flores.

Have you met Mama Ernie?

She’s the leader of a community of weavers near Maumere. Originally from a small island off the coast of Flores, she and her neighbors were forced to relocate after a vulcano eruption had devastated their home. 

Mama Ernie is a proud, strong woman. Yet as she told us her story for the first time, away from the other women of the group, tears started running down her face. 

Settling in on the mainland was not easy. The land the local government allocated to them was small, barely 20x20 meters per family. Water is scarce and large rocks make it challenging it to cultivate the already barren soil. 

Living their whole lives as farmers, Mama Ernie and her neighbors found themselves unable to grow their own food. 

So Mama Ernie started weaving again - a skill she had learned when she was little. Back on her island, women would only weave for personal and ceremonial use. Fabrics would be exchanged for weddings, when a child was born, when someone passed away.

Weaving became the only source of income

Yet now, weaving became Mama Ernie’s only source of income. 

Their traditional ikat weaving is a communal task. From tying the threads using palm leaves and dyeing them with local indigo to constructing the loom, bundles of threads passing hands at dizzying speeds, all by memory.

Since 2013 she and the community of women she leads would weave fabrics they sell at a local market. Yet prices were low. Unable to sell the fabrics directly, the women were still struggling to provide for their families.

Together with some of our partners, we have been supporting Mama Ernie and her community since 2018. Providing natural dye and design trainings - and of course buying the women’s training pieces. 

With your help, we kept supporting the community throughout the pandemic with our Covid Women Fund. Because local markets had to close, no tourists came to Flores anymore and what little work the husbands had been able to find vanished overnight. 

We provided food, cooking oil and some money so the women’s children could afford to buy phone credit and continue their schooling online.

All the while, we saved up a share of your donations for something we’ve been planning for since hearing Mama Ernie’s story: A dream that we know would come true one day when the time was right:

One of the village elders performing a traditional blessing ceremony during the groundbreaking for Rumah SukkhaCitta Flores.

Craft School #5

Earlier this year, we finally started construction of our fifth craft school, Rumah SukkhaCitta Flores. It will be a place for the women to work together, train more young mothers to join the cooperative and to showcase their proud work to tourists that slowly return to the area.

We hope to open it near the end of 2023.

After over 10 years of struggle, Mama Ernie and her community feel a new sense of hope. They’re looking forward to having a home for their craft. Where their fabrics are no longer just a mere commodity but a celebration of the proud motifs and traditions of their home. 

You can follow us on social media to see as we’re progressing with Rumah SukkhaCitta Flores. And if you’d like to contribute, you can do so via our Fund an Education program. 

Thank you for making our work possible.