RANGOON — For Naw Eh Wah and her handmade jewelry shop, a kind of affirmative action dictates the hiring process.
“People with disabilities are like my relatives,” she says. “They are always in my heart. I am happier to give these jobs to them rather than giving jobs to others.”
After leaving her own job as a livelihood coordinator for disabled people at a nongovernmental organization in 2013, Naw Eh Wah wanted to continue to better the lives of a community she had grown close to over four years working in Rangoon’s Hlaing Tharyar Township.
For her, it meant continuing to do what she was good at: making handmade accessories, and in the process helping people with disabilities to earn a living.
So began “Amazing Grace,” a social enterprise based in Rangoon that produces handmade jewelry and accessories from locally produced materials. The shop opened in February 2014 with the support of Naw Eh Wah’s family.
The Amazing Grace workforce is primarily comprised of people with disabilities. Most work from home and check in once a week to take assignments and deliver their creations to the shop. Their disabilities vary, from hearing impairment to polio to limited mobility as a result of accidents. What most also have in common is an ability to work well with their hands.
“I continue to teach them and learn new designs and find markets to sell the products,” the 27-year-old ethnic Karen woman says.
Making handmade accessories was not something new for Naw Eh Wah, for whom it had always been something of a hobby.
“I have been interested in making accessories since I was young,” she says. “I would always give my handmade products for friends’ birthdays.”
Amazing Grace’s products include earrings, bracelets and necklaces, all made from recycled materials such as bicycle tires, stones, beads and string.
Some items also come with a local flair, thanks in part to a Thai woman named Intira Thepsittawiwat.
Intira, who has a shared interest in handmade accessories, came to Naw Eh Wah in February with a proposal to produce necklaces using local fabric. Since then, the two women have been adding necklaces made from traditional Burmese longyi patterns and textiles to Amazing Grace’s repertoire.
“I want to make handmade jewelry made in Myanmar, so the materials should be something local,” Intira says. “I thought of longyis. I came here and I asked her, ‘Can you do that with a longyi?’”
The price for a piece of handmade jewelry ranges from 2,000 kyats (US$1.80) to 15,000 kyats, while handmade fabric necklaces can cost anywhere from 10,000 kyats to 30,000 kyats. The products are increasingly popular as wedding thank-you gifts, Naw Eh Wah says.
Amazing Grace currently employs about 10 people with disabilities. Each of them earn from 70,000 kyats to 100,000 kyats per month, based on the number of items they produce.
And business is good, meaning Naw Eh Wah is looking to expand her roster of employees.
“Sometimes, our workforce is not enough to handle the workload,” she says.
Having grown up around people affected by leprosy at a hospital in Mon State’s Moulmein, Naw Eh Wah says her next step is to create jobs for them too. She has plans to teach how to produce wooden blocks for kindergarten classrooms and handmade crafts to men and women living around the hospital compound.
“They have been affected by leprosy and are cured, but they are disabled in that they can’t go back to their environment,” she says, explaining that social stigma and physical impairments caused by leprosy made returning to society difficult.
“I will continue to find markets and expand my work,” she adds.
An open house showcasing Amazing Grace’s handmade jewelry will be held on May 28 from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm. Contact [email protected] or send a Facebook message to this account to find out the event’s location.
Amazing Grace products can be purchased at No. 26(A), Min Ye Kyaw Swar St. (corner of Min Ye Kyaw Swar St. and Maggine St.) in Kyaukkone, Yankin Township, and at Pomelo, 89 Thein Pyu Road, in Rangoon.
