1. Hight Impact Research (HIR) Secretariat, Level 1, High Impact Research (HIR) Building,
University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai, 50603 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 603-7967 3231 / 7763 / 7790 | Fax: 603-7967 7727
hirgrant@um.edu.my
UM HIR BREAKING
Vol 30/2015
PUA KUMBU WEAVING PROJECT SELECTED AS MALAYSIAN BEST PRACTICE
AT EUROPEAN PROJECT, SUSY.
29 October 2015
HIR congratulates Dr. Welyne Jeffrey Jehom from the
Department of Gender Studies, Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences, for having her HIR-funded Pua
Kumbu Weaving Industry Project selected as Social
and Solidarity Economy Best Practice for Malaysia
by Sustainable and Solidarity Economy (SUSY).
Human Resources Without Borders (HRWB), an NGO repre-
senting France in a consortium of 23 countries, is collaborat-
ing with Dr. Welyne Jeffrey Jehom within the framework of
a European project SUSY. The mission of the project is to
contribute a coherent and comprehensive response to the
universal challenges of poverty eradication and sustainable
development, ensuring a ‘Decent Life for all by 2030’.
The SUSY project is a network of 26 associations in 23
European countries enhancing the competences of local
actors engaged in the social and solidarity economy. In
doing so, its strategic goal is to support a new paradigm of
economic development in order to fight poverty and to
disseminate an equitable and sustainable way of living.
Headed by Martine Combemale, the director of HRWB, the
project covers four French departments (Languedoc Roussil-
lon, Midi-Pyrénées, Aquitaine andÎlede France) and Malay-
sia. The project has to nominate one social and solidarity
economy example of best practice per territory and the pua
kumbu weaving industry project led by Dr. Welyne has been
selected as a representative of Malaysian best practice. The
community engagement of the pua kumbu weaving project
has striven to bring the pua kumbu cloth made by the Iban
women weavers in Kapit, Sarawak, to new market
platforms. The purpose is to enhance indigenous knowledge
in empowering and uplifting the livelihoods of these
women and their community.
The poly-sensory “Textile Tales of Pua Kumbu” exhibition, in
collaboration with the former director of the Centre for
Creative Content and Digital Innovation (CCCDI), Professor
Harold Thwaites, held in June 2015 at the UM Art Gallery,
was one of the strategies to stimulate public awareness of
the history of pua kumbu, its production processes and its
final products.
The ongoing documentation of pua kumbu designs and
motifs is being conducted through collective memory narra-
tives of the pua kumbu, combining the thoughts, experi-
ence and memories of master weavers and the others from
Kapit and different regions of Sarawak. This engagement
has brought back many pua kumbu designs that had not
been woven for the past half century.
Said Dr. Welyne ”The restoration and conservation of pua
kumbu designs and motifs aim to accumulate as many
possible unique styles and methods. This, in turn, has two
further benefits. First, it helps create an indigenous knowledge
database that improvescapacity building. And second, it
enables commercialisation possibilities for pua kumbu, based
on a ‘fair share’ concept of income for the weavers. Both these
factors have been crucial criteria in the selection of this project
as an example of best practice”.
The conservation methods employed by the project have also
attracted the attention of the Southeast Asian Studies
Regional Exchange Program (SEASREAP). Dr. Welyne was
invited to present her work in Manila, the Philippines, in
August 2015 for a research and publication project on Heritage
Conservation Policies and Methods in Southeast Asia: Issues
and Responses.
According to Dr. Welyne, the next step is to prepare a docu-
mentary film about the pua kumbu weaving industry. This will
include stake holders’ interviews and a narrative of the lives of
the weavers of Kapit, Sarawak. Adèle Rivet, HRWB project
manager, and Charles Gay, aUS-based film producer will travel
to Malaysia in November 2015 to gather visual images for the
film, assisted by Dr. Welyne. This documentary will be
presented at different European events in 2016.
In addition, as part of the SUSY project, Dr. Welyne has also
been selected to participate in a 2016 speaking tour of France.
She will be travelling for 16 days around the four French
departments in order to present key goals and findings of the
pua kumbu weaving industry project.
Photo: Dr. Welyne Jeffrey
Jehom with Adèle Rivet
(middle), project
manager of HRWB, in a
meeting at Tenaganita.
Links
HRWB: www.rhsansfrontieres.org/en/HRWB on
SUSY project: http://www.rhsansfrontieres.org/fr/activites/nos-projets/projet-europeen.html
SUSY: http://www.solidarityeconomy.eu/
Charles Gay documentary: https://vimeo.com/77293466