Helping Cultural Crafts Flourish
How Internet connectivity helps Pakistani women carry on their cultural heritage
Female artisans dominate Pakistan’s handicraft industry, but due to a variety of challenges — from lack of secondary education to gender-based discrimination — they aren’t always able to access markets or receive fair compensation for their goods. Increasing globalization has also intensified competition, driving prices lower.
Ayena Waseem is one such artisan who makes lacquer wood art. She learned it from her mother and father, who inherited the rare skill from generations of family members before them. In fact, the decorative handicraft, involving intricate designs carefully carved into wooden objects, is a family heritage dating back 500 years, and Ayena wants to preserve it for the next generation.
“This is our family’s work, and no one knows this skill outside our family,” she said. “Currently, it is just me and my father and mother who are working with this. I really want to teach this art to other people in order to pass it on and nurture it, because the thing is, I am the only remaining heir of this art. If I abandon it, it will disappear from the world. I want to preserve this tradition.”
Ayena makes everything from jewelry boxes to coffee tables and serving trays by taking pre-shaped and seasoned wood, applying colored lacquer to it, then using tools to carve out designs.
Budgeting challenges
Ayena lives in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, where sales for her work aren’t profitable enough for her family to live on. Her father is also paying Ayena’s tuition for a bachelor’s degree in botany.
In order to reach markets for specialty crafts, Ayena and her family travel considerable distances to Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, and elsewhere to exhibit their work and meet with clients.
However, travel costs trim their budget for supplies — money that would otherwise flow into their local market — and make it harder for Ayena’s father to pay the tuition.
Getting connected
As Ayena was learning her family’s signature craft, she longed to search the Internet for more creative design ideas. That’s when her family decided to get an Internet connection, and soon after, at an exhibition in Lahore, she learned about the Vceela online marketplace for handmade goods.
The USAID-supported social enterprise provides a village-to-world marketing model allowing artisans from smaller communities in Pakistan to connect with global markets without needing advanced digital skills.
Working on the ground, Vceela studies the unique realities of craft makers and offers them real-time design and technology consultation to help them overcome their marketing challenges.
Vceela has trained and equipped more than 2,000 local artisans, 70% of them women, to sell directly to global consumers on their digital marketplace, increasing their sales by more than 40% on average.
Vceela is one of 6,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan — including 600 women-led enterprises — to receive USAID support. Through an array of customized, demand-driven services, USAID helped improve their competitiveness and growth potential. During a five-year period, the project is expected to yield thousands of new jobs and significant increases in revenues and exports.
Ayena created an online shop through Vceela, instantly connecting her to local and international markets and allowing her to set her own prices and sell her handmade goods year-round. Now that she can work from home, Ayena gets more profit out of every product sold.
“Vceela has improved the amount of orders we get, and we have been able to sell our artwork abroad to countries other than Pakistan,” Ayena said.
“And in Pakistan, we can now deliver anywhere and everywhere through Vceela. The income helps my father run the house and it contributes towards my tuition fee.”
USAID’s 2020 Digital Development Awards (the Digis) recognize USAID projects that harness the power of digital tools and data-driven decision making. The USAID’s Small and Medium Enterprise Activity in Pakistan, implemented by Chemonics, was one of five winners chosen out of 140 applicants.