WeavingJob opportunities develop income [Archives:2004/759/Culture]

Mahyoub Al-Kamaly
Yemeni families possess many handicraft, they have retreated under influence of industrialize imports especially a portion of hand – made industries. But these handicraft are still providing thousand of job opportunities and improve income of many of those working in this field, particularly in areas reputed by such professions in Hadramout, Tehama, Lahj, Hajja, Taiz, Saad'a, Aden, Al-Mohara and others.
Weaving profession occupies the higher proportion among women working in this field, with regard to easiness of learning it or the women capability of creativity and producing various genre of well-produced knitted products a weaver Aisha Mohammed Ali who works in knitting cattle wool in Al-Baidha says many Yemeni families weave wool making of them blankets to protect against cold. These covers and blankets are mostly used in the season of winter. Women also work in the industry of children flannels and shawls, as these profession alleviate poverty of many families.
While wool weaving is up to now spread in areas of governorates of Shabwa, Marib, Al-Jawf and Al-Baidha, a large number of Yemeni poor families are being trained on weaving and embroidery in an effort for reducing unemployment, poverty and improvement of family revenues annual income. Nevertheless, Aisha says the despite of significant of women training centers for qualifying the women for certain profession to help her obtain a work opportunity, Yemeni women turn out to these centers is regretfully still not very much as their number each year does not exceed 5700 trainees, 55% of them learn the art of weaving designing, and 12% of them household management, 10% embroidery and 8% in handicrafts.
In its support for weaving and embroidery, the government intends to improve its revenues of hard currency in future by increase of production by using most sophisticated methods with good quality and encouraging prices in a prelude to invade external markets.
Mariam Abdullah Al-Lahji affirms, on the other hand, that training and qualification are useful for women and that woman centers played a good role in reviving handicraft tread in the market, especially products of weaving Maqateb, the production of which has been improved through using imported textiles. Mariam who works at the centre for weaving Maqateb, adds that this trend helped many women overcome their financial problems such as those women in Lahj, Shabwa, and Hadhramout. She also says that the weaving profession is nowadays undergoing steady growth as there is an increasing demand for these products because of their convenient prices for people of limited income.
By studying the situation of women training centers it appears that professional production is need of support for the purpose of providing work opportunities, and development of income for a large number of the poor and the unemployed. Weaving profession in Yemen has, however, been affected, as is the case with other profession, by competition of alternative products of imported industries. This situation is observed despite of the fact that there are continue offers for increasing Yemeni handicraft production to provide guaranteed sources of income.
People concerned and interested in folklore and handicraft profession emphasize that there are chances for investment in the area of developing handicraft industries and introduction of developed techniques for investment in handicraft sector. Under the situation of non-availability of other work opportunities, women training centers have only one option, i.e. consolidating existing offers for paying attention to handicraft production to enable it compete with external industrial alternatives.
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