The Good Shepherd Sisters of Nongkhai

Giving People A Choice!

‘JJ’ Jeremy Johanson

We are all aware of the current moral ‘clean-up’ that is sweeping the country, but moral judgement aside, we each have the right to chose our own profession… provided, there is a choice. The Good Shepherd Sisters provide education & work opportunities so that girls and boys from the region of Isan can take charge of their own destinies. 01_Sister mary

Sister Mary Hayden
Good Shepherd Sisters

Sister Mary Hayden is a wonderful soul who firmly believes not in ‘giving help to people’ but ‘helping people to help themselves’! She explains, “What we do is try to help the woman to help themselves. We offer them skilled training and we also sponsor children for education. We find that if a young person has an education or some kind of skilled training and goes to the city, they will have a good chance to lead a decent livelihood. But without education they become the victims immediately of crime or gangs or prostitution or what have you.”

The Good Shepard Sisters started by taking a close look local talents. They started by meeting with the villagers. “All the woman here can weave. So we decided, well, let us start there. So you do the weaving and let us see what we can do about selling what you weave. We now have a large program going and we’re helping over 200 families.

The Village Weaver Factory allows visitors to see the dexterity and expertise with which items are manufactured. But before this, the girls learn how to convert the woven material into crafts. Sister Mary told us, “Our big problem, of course, is to find sales. Because the more sales we find, the more women and families can help themselves. We have no worries about the quality of the crafts because we receive compliments the whole time on the high quality. The villagers are very very skilled. You show them, give them a sample of some craft and it’s done perfectly and quickly.”

The beautiful woven Isan fabric is called ‘Matmee Cloth’. The thread is first carefully prepared, measured and wound onto skeins. A skilled worker can weave about 1 ½ meters of cloth per day. Finished material can be crafted into clothes, bags & accessories and household items (pillows, tablecloths, placemats…). It can also be purchased by the metre or… woven to order!

‘Matmee’ meaning ‘tied strings’, referring to the way the cloth is made. Dye resistant string is used to tie the skeins into intricate designs. This accounts for the beautiful patterns produced on the final woven material. The thread of the dyed skeins is then wound onto bobbins for use with the hand-operated weaving machines. While natural dyes are still used, colourfast chemical dyes have been introduced to ensure uniformity of colour.

Sister Lakana Sukhsuchit helps the girls out with embroidery. She told us, “We have a lot of order for T-shirts. We make the T-shirts ourselves so we can control the quality of the material and sizes”.

Opportunities are also given to young men and women to learn the ancient craft of pottery making. These high quality handmade ceramics and pottery… vases, garden planters, candle holders, oil burners & decorative boxes are unique in their design and craftsmanship. All the pottery is wheel thrown and designs are carved by hand into the wet clay. Each piece is then fired in a gas-powered kiln and hand-painted.

The Good Sisters also help produce other quality items such as wonderful cards and bookmarks, as well as embroidered and ceramic Christmas ornaments. So don’t forget what you can do for Santa this year!

All of these products can be bought at the Village Weavers shop in Nongkhai, it’s sister shop ‘Patches’ in Bangkok, or via the internet. These beautiful quality hand-woven fabrics, clothes and home accessories are more than just a simple purchased item. They are one of the keys to helping the people of Isan become self-sufficient, by creating job opportunities and economic independence. As Sister Mary reminds us, “The outside community could do a lot to help us. We are not business people by any means, but if people promote the sales our crafts, we can always supply the workers. We can supply top quality in whatever crafts they produce. That is what we are trying to do the whole time.”