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Water Hyacinth Handicraft Products Group

Water Hyacinth Handicraft Products Group

Water Hyacinth Handicraft Products Group In the past, villagers in San Pa Muang works on fields and rice fields, find wild stuffs and do the fishery. The geography of Sam Pa Muang is connected to Kwan Phayao. The water hyacinth was firstly considered as a useless weed. Villagers can use the tops in cooking and make fertilizer from the stem. Later in 1981, there were two nuns from the house of priest, who have knowledge and experience in handcrafting water hyacinth into products, visited and stayed at San Pa Muangsubdistrict. They transferred the knowledge to the San Pa Muang housewife group so they could do it as their part-time job after the rice gathering season. They taught them how to weave the water hyacinth into souvenirs and hammocks by using not complicated method. First, they must dry the plant and weave them into different designed pattern. However the products were not in the market demand. Since they were not stable, beautiful and easily get mold. Some products used lots of material and took time such as hammock but the compensation was not worth for the labor. Later, many government sectors such as Community Development Department Phayao Province and Industrial Development Department Phayao Province has hired the lecturers to provide knowledge about how to sun-dry the water hyacinth and bake in sulphur to handicraft them into products such as egg-shaped wicker baskets, saucers and others. Later, Department of Industry Promotion selected San Pa Muang village as the rural industrial village for tourism according to the industrial project. After that, many government sectors; such as San Pa MuangSubdistrict Administrative Organization, Community Development Department Phayao Province, Phayao Province Cooperative Office, Phayao Office of Commercial Affairs, Phayao Office of Non-formal and Informal Education, Industrial Development Department Phayao Province and other sectors; have provided support and pattern and production process development to the village by providing budget, hold the seminar to increase skill, support revolving fund and other activities. Nowadays, there are development in production process, patterns, stability and beauty which drive the products to be in market’s demand, expansion into neighborhood villages and subdistricts to produce adequate amounts of products for the market.