This village of three hundred families lies just outside Chiang Saen, near the Mekong River in northeast Thailand. Unlike some of the silk villages in the region, San Tad farms its own silk worms, which includes cultivating mulberries for worm-feed, hand-harvesting the silk, and meticulously cleaning its sticky threads. Some of this work is government-supported as part of an eco-tourism homestay project, but so far, the initiative has generated very little additional revenue.

This quiet community of thatched-roof houses and lush bamboo groves is home to two hundred Hmong families. About 100 Tha Thong women produce traditional Hmong embroidery, but the majority of villagers earn a living on the rice fields – an increasingly difficult occupation, as agricultural efforts run up against the region’s hilly topography as well as the village’s growing population.

The Anantara Golden Triangle Resort and Spa, in partnership with the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation and the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, provides a haven for overworked, abused elephants and the mahouts who rely on these animals for their livelihood. Twenty mahout families now live in the Anantara Elephant Camp (a dusty strip of bamboo thatch huts and fields where tourists can learn to drive and bathe the gentle beasts) in exchange for a small stipend and housing. To earn a little extra income, a handful of the mahouts’ wives weave silk scarves.

Khun Yoong is a small, sweet-faced Burmese woman who lives in a village near Mae Sai called Padang. She is HIV-positive. Because the symptoms of the disease leave her unable to continue construction and field labor, she ekes out a living through her extraordinary talent for sequin and beadwork. Before being introduced to Izara Arts, she was being paid a mere 80 to 130 baht apiece – between two and four U.S. dollars – for intricately beaded dresses that took her four or five days to complete.

The 400 families in the village of Rong Wai are all from Isan, a particularly impoverished and drought-prone region in northeastern Thailand whose people speak a hybrid local dialect that resembles Laotian. Of the fifty women in Rong Wai who work with silk, fifteen weave scarves using the tri-colored “skinny” technique for Izara Arts.

Huay Chant Lod is home to eighty families of Mien, an ethnic minority that originally emigrated from China. The majority of the remaining Mien population in Thailand lives either in Huay Chan Lod or in a neighboring village of just two hundred families. Mien women are known for the incredibly fine detail of their colorful, embroidered costumes – often, it will take a woman six months to sew a single pant leg. Thirty women in Huay Chant Lod are skilled in traditional Mien handicrafts, fifteen of whom work on Izara Arts projects.

A primarily “white Hmong” village (differentiated from other Hmong subgroups only by dialect), Thai Chairon boasts thirty seven women who do traditional Hmong embroidery, but just eight who are skilled in clothwork.

This group consists of about 10 women from the Karen hill tribe who weave at home using backstrap looms.

The Karen tribe is well-known for its skillful techniques in naturally dyeing and hand weaving cotton fabrics. They use all natural materials, usually different kinds of bark and leaves, sometimes even mud, to create a variety of natural colors.

Ruth and Chuck Fox have been working with this group of Akha village women for over 7 years and they provide us with the skilled finish of our products. When they arrived in the area, they realized that the villagers needed steady work to improve their lives so they bought sewing machines and started the long process of training unskilled workers to produce factory quality items. Most of their products are sold to their colleagues and associates in the USA.

The Mirror Art Foundation works in the same area as Izara Arts, providing a link between urban Thais and rural hilltribes through volunteer experiences. We have often collaborated as we develop our craft producers and markets. Their handicrafts are sold through their website at www.ebannok.com. Read more about their group at www.mirrorartgroup.org.

Buzu is an Akha woman living in Baan Doi, a Thai village close to Chiang Rai. She is 43 years old. She has 2 daughters and 1 son. One daughter is working, one is studying in Grade 1 and her son is starting school this term. Her birth place is PhaLa in the mountains north of Chiang Rai.

The Phu Khor women approached Khom Loy Development Foundation in 2003 and asked for help selling their handicrafts. We realized that the traditional products of the hilltribe communities, although beautiful, are considered too "ethnic" to sell in Western Markets without some design input so we focused first on creating "crossover" products. Now we go to these experienced artisans to produce our prototypes because of their understanding, interpretation and confidence.