Connecting with Creative Women in Vietnam...

While I was in Vietnam, I was welcomed by the Maryknoll community in Hanoi, which consisted of four missionaries--Vu Anh, Tawny and her husband, Hiep, and Fr. Tom. Tawny (in the middle, green shirt) is particularly interested in developing crafts for production working with various populations in Hanoi, among them, autistic children whom her husband Hiep works with at Hanoi's only school for special children, and HIV+ women in both Hanoi and the rural provinces. 

The HIV+ women are Tawny's real love and concern--they become nearly untouchables once they are diagnosed. Tawny is working with a young and very energetic Dominican sister, Duyen, who you can see in the picture with her to the left, and who is very familiar with the urgent needs of several rural and impoverished  communities consisting of HIV+ women.  (Vu Anh is the young woman with the glasses on the right--a veritable whirlwind of energy, although she's looking pretty subdued there by Vietnam's late afternoon heat! We all went for a sugar cane drink pretty soon after this shot was taken!)

Tawny is very crafty herself, having developed the cute little dolls shown above, made out of crepe paper. She and the others have also worked with the disadvantaged, developing beautiful religious art out of mother of pearl inlay, as you can also see above. They are looking for markets for these and other projects, including some floating candles made by autistic children. The woman running the school for the autistic and Down's syndrome children is also looking for marketable craft ideas for the older children to produce...that being a whole other day's work...

I worked a little bit with Tawny on the idea of developing silk night gowns for export, since Tawny had run a shop in Los Angeles making silk night gowns years ago. We travelled to a silk producing village and looked at many samples of silk, as well as some prototypes for nightgowns. It's all pretty exciting, and I hope to be able to put her in touch with some vendors here in the States who want to sell high quality, fairly made and fairly traded goods from Vietnam. So, I will keep you posted as we move ahead into a new and exciting future together. Wish us luck, and if you have any ideas for vendors for these products, please don't hesitate to contact me!