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2008-04-01 issue:

One little woman makes a big difference

Kommaly Chanthavong is savior of her people.

by Polly W. Swafford

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Born in an impoverished village in the northeastern mountains of Laos, one of the poorest nations in the world, Kommaly Chanthavong grew up to be the savior of her people.



Kommaly Chanthavong

She says, “God doesn’t want us to despair or give up. He gives us energy, passion and the fruit for our labors. He even gives me colors to dye silk scarves by looking at the colors of the sunset and sunrise. He is my teacher.”

This petite, unassuming woman has transformed life in the mountains by giving poor villagers a much needed source of income. She founded a cooperative for producing silk and teaching skills to raise silkworms, create natural dyes and weave traditional Laotian patterns.

When Chanthavong was a child, the war between Vietnam and France extended into Laos, a country landlocked by China, Thailand and Vietnam. Soldiers from both sides burned homes, and planes bombed her village, Muang Pern, forcing her family to hide in the forest.

In 1960, Chanthavong, then 13, dreamed of a better life for herself and all the villagers. She decided to flee Muang Pern, hoping to find safety and freedom in Vientiane, the capital.

Alone, she trekked barefoot through the jungle for two days, praying, “Let me be safe.”

Then she came upon a regiment of Laotian soldiers, which proved to be an answer to her prayer. Her uncle was one of the soldiers, and together they traveled 250 kilometers south to Vientiane. Once there, her uncle adopted her. Now she was safe and could again go to school.

“Back in Mother’s home,” her daughter Souphaphone says, “the villagers called her lazy because she wanted to learn to read and write, instead of doing housework. Education was limited to about a third-grade level.”

In Vientiane, Chanthavong finished secondary studies in 1964 and entered nursing training.

She studied hard and sold cloth she wove to help support her adopted family. Later she met Noulieme Chanthavong, and they were married in 1972.

Meanwhile, battles in the North intensified. Her father was killed in the war, leaving her mother and two sisters without livelihood.

“At this point,” Chanthavong says, “I left nursing and started my own import-export business to help support my mother and sisters. I arranged to sell Laotian products and import goods from Thailand for Lao farmers to buy.”

When the war ended, Communists took over Vientiane. Many families, including her adopted family, fled Laos. The government closed the borders and ended communication with other countries.

“Finding food was next to impossible,” she says. “Jobs were scarce. Because of the shortage of petrol, I walked to remote areas to trade my goods for something to eat. Sometimes I crossed the Mekhong River on a raft to Thailand to find food and sneaked a visit with my adopted family in a refugee camp. Thai soldiers imprisoned me for a while. I was never afraid, but this was a very hard time, and I fell into a deep depression.”

In 1976, Kommaly and Noulieme Chanthavong settled in Phon Tong village, near Vientiane, where many displaced villagers from northern Laos were living.

“I wanted to help the villagers,” Chanthavong says, “so I invited 10 women to our home to do their weaving together. Every day the women came to weave, have lunch and encourage each other. With their support, I began to recover from my depression.”

She also created recipes for making soy sauce and fish sauce, which sold quickly at the “morning market” and in government shops. The Lao government gave her special permission to travel to Thailand to obtain needed ingredients.

Meanwhile, Chanthavong and Noulieme had three children. Her responsibilities were mounting, but she continued to give time and effort to reinforce her women’s group, helping them “earn a dependable income.”

Souphaphone Chanthavong says, “My mother’s goal to help her people remained strong. In 1980, when the communist government was encouraging cooperatives, she formed the Phon Tong Handicraft Cooperative. The following year, the Department of Industry in Vientiane Municipality sent her to Vietnam for management training and afterward to Moscow for marketing training.”

The cooperative provides free raw materials and lessons to preserve the art of traditional Laotian weaving. Previously, weavers had to buy materials from suppliers in neighboring countries who charged high prices and didn’t always deliver the goods. Each year the cooperative divides profits among the government, shareholders and operating funds. The shareholders are the producers—more than 450 weavers, basket makers and wood carvers from 35 villages.

This system earned government approval. In 1989, the cooperative began working with Ten Thousand Villages, a fair-trade organization with stores in the United States and Canada.

Kommaly serves as director of the cooperative; Noulieme manages its finances.

Last year, Chanthavong and her daughter demonstrated spinning silk from silkworm cocoons and weaving techniques at the Ten Thousand Villages store in Overland Park, Kan. First she boiled cocoons in a big pot to loosen the single, delicate fiber. Taking filaments from 60 cocoons, she spun them into a single silk thread on a small, hand-operated spinning machine, then wove a scarf on a miniature loom.

During the demonstration, Souphaphone said, “Mother remembered how the poverty-stricken villagers in northeastern Laos scratched out a living as subsistence farmers.

She convinced some of them to change their methods of farming—to raise cows for milk and manure for fertilizer and to plant mulberry saplings. The saplings would produce leaves for organic fertilizer and food for growing silk worms, fruit for dyes and eating, and bark for tea.”

In 1995, Kommaly Chanthavong started a silk farm in Xiengkhuang Province, experimenting to find the most efficient method of silk production. Today it produces silk for scarves and wall hangings for export to Ten Thousand Villages and other fair-trade organizations. Ninety percent of the farmers sell their silkworm cocoons back to the cooperative. Kommaly’s dream has come true—the silk production utilizes local resources and supports the villagers.

She says, “My passion remains the same today. As I consider these accomplishments, I thank God for everyone who has helped along the way and the success that God has given in my work.”

Polly W. Swafford lives in Prairie Village, Kan.

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