Traditional Cambodian village houses are set high on stilts – for defence against floods but also for storage of equipment and livestock, and as a place to provide shade in the heat.
When travelling through the villages of Koh Dach, however, you’ll often see something else taking pride of place in the sheltered spaces under the houses – weaving looms.
Koh Dach, also known as Silk Island, sits on the banks of the Mekong River, upstream from Phnom Penh. As the Western version of its name would suggest, it has a rich tradition in silk production and traditional weaving – in particular the creation of krama – the iconic, multipurpose scarf that’s practically a national symbol in Cambodia.
Handwoven from either silk or cotton, krama date back to at least the Angkor period (802 to 1431AD), and Cambodians will proudly tell you there are more than 50 uses for them.
And it was the krama that provided a solution for Cantabrian Rebecca Parnham, who, having travelled to Cambodia in 2010, had been looking for a way to support women in need in a country still rebuilding after decades of civil war, genocide and poverty.
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“My husband and I decided to go over there, and we didn’t know anything about their history, so it was quite shocking as you can imagine,” says Parnham.
“Things like S21 [a prison used by the Khmer Rouge for torture] and the Killing Fields – I saw all that and it was just completely devastating. We were lucky enough to go to Battambang, where they have the bamboo railway. It’s this old railway line that they weren’t running trains on any more, so what they do is the locals chuck a bamboo platform down with a motor and they take their stuff to town, it’s their transport.
“So I was on that and just thinking about how ingenious it was, then as we pulled up I saw a woman that had her krama tied to her handlebars and she was using it as a bike seat, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is actually something I could do.”
“So I bought a krama in the markets and went home, and then got busy having my kids, but I just kept thinking about mums in Cambodia – when you’re a mum in New Zealand you don’t actually have as much to worry about in comparison – these mums just want to feed their kids.”
Parnham was put in touch with Phnom Penh-based Nita Pennell, a Cambodian national born in 1985 in a refugee camp on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, who had also been looking for a way to help.
“There was a lady on Facebook from a parenting group who said she was going to Cambodia, and I asked her if there any chance she could find a village that I could buy krama from. She said she wouldn’t have time but had a Khmer friend who would really love to be able to do something, and she introduced me to Nita, and then we just talked via Messenger,” says Parnham.
“So then it was a process of figuring out how to do it, where to get them from. The good thing about the village Nita gets them from is that it’s not too far for her.
“And for me, I didn’t want to be a charity, I wanted to be a social enterprise, I wanted the women we work with to be business women, so they get to give back to their community – it’s not empowering at all to make it a charity.”
Krama & Co co-founder Pennell, whose family moved to Phnom Penh from the refugee camp when she was five, says, “I wanted to help the ladies making kramas, to make a better life for them. Making kramas is the only business to feed their family. Nowadays the ladies making kramas are struggling with their business, and it influences their living.
“When I first visited the villages, everyone was so happy I was ordering kramas from them,” she recalls.
“I went from house to house to buy kramas. Doing this, every family can earn some money and they can support their family and feed them. My life was quite tough so I do understand what poor people need to survive from day to day. I’m glad I’ve found Rebecca and Krama & Co. I now can help, give back to society and help people to have a better life.”
Buying direct from the weavers themselves cuts out any middleman, they pay the asking rate, and from every krama she purchases, Parnham contributes an additional US$1 into a “village fund”, which can be used by the weaving villages for whatever they need most.
“Sometimes we also get donations, so we put that into the village fund as well, and whenever we have enough money, Nita asks the ladies what they want – every time they’ve said they want the medical team.
“So the medical team are from [charitable trust] One-2-One, and they’ve got a really strong link to New Zealand, there’s a GP and some churches in New Zealand that support them, so we feel really safe to be working with them.”
The medical team set up a makeshift clinic underneath a village house and spend the day attending to any of the villagers who stop by. It’s often the only opportunity they get to have check ups and receive medication, and Pennell also attends to assist, purchase more krama and hand out any other donations that have come through for the villagers.
“One time Nita managed to get reading glasses – her daughter’s preschool had a lady who was connected with a charity – I have previously sent over dresses from Dress a Girl Around the World, and I have also sent over toys from a New Zealand charity called Dolly Donations,” says Parnham.
After an initial year or so involving a “huge amount of work”, things have now settled into place for Krama & Co, and the brand has also just had a further boost, being picked up by ethical and sustainable retailer Tonic & Cloth.
“That’s really exciting,” says Parnham. “They are exactly what we’re about, they’re all about empowering women as well, all of their clients care about that already, and it will pretty much double our reach.”
Krama & Co has also set Parnham – a former social worker – on an all-encompassing ethical fashion journey from Cambodia right back to Christchurch.
“My time in social work lead me to strongly believe that if you give to a woman you give to her child, family and community,” she says.
She recently resolved to buy only secondhand or ethical clothing, is involved in several sustainable clothing-related groups and social enterprises, runs talks and events via a trust called Stitch-a-Mat out of a former school in New Brighton shut down after the earthquakes, and raises funds for counselling and support service Home & Family.
“The fashion industry is often seen as shallow and I would like to see us as women turn it all around and use it as a form of expression and platform for change for women everywhere.”
