ECOCLUB Blogs™

We’re four weeks into the second year of Stitching Our Stories! We have expanded to include women from other ethnic groups like Kmhmu, Tai Lue, Tai Dam, and Phunoi and have started the Stitching Our Stories scholarship and internship programme. The work of the participants of years one and two will be featured in a community-curated exhibition on “childhood” opening in September 2014. Some of the young women’s work will also be showcased at the United Nations Annual Commission on the Status of Women in March 2014 in New York City.   This project has garnered a lot of interest recently for its commitment to ensuring the voices of ethnic women are heard, providing educational enrichment opportunities to women and children, and helping to encourage ethnic pride among minorities. If you would like to support this project, our partner, PhotoForward, has just launched a crowd-funding campaign on RocketHub and some of the funds raised will go to supporting this important project. Or, contact us directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Every bit helps to make a difference in a young woman’s life!

We are excited about a new project to empower minority women to share their stories through photography, interviews, and video.  In November, TAEC finished the first phase of the project with our partner, PhotoForward.  The participants, primarily young Hmong women from the night market, were given cameras, taught basic photography skills, and then asked to document women at work in their communities. The results were insightful and showed the strength of women in Lao society.  We celebrated the women’s creativity and hard work by exhibiting their photographs and embroidery at Children’s Cultural Centre.  To view their images, visit the online gallery at http://www.photoforward.org/women-at-work.html   We are now in the second phase of this project, working with a smaller group of women to further develop their photography skills and introduce them to basic research techniques.  The women have been exploring topics of their choosing, from shamanism and polygamy, to single parenthood and festival food preparation.  This project is a part of TAEC’s ethnic youth internship program , developing ethnic community researchers to document their own cultures.   To raise funds to continue the project, postcards featuring the women’s photography will be available for purchase in our TAEC Shop in March.  We hope...