Charting a path out of poverty for Sri Lanka's coir workers
In an effort to help tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka restore their incomes, Oxfam helped to get the coir industry, a key element of the local economy, back on its feet. As the emergency phase of the tsunami response drew to a close at the end of 2005, Oxfam turned its attention to helping coir workers in southern Sri Lanka raise their incomes above pre-tsunami levels.
Some buy the fiber from local millers; others have coir pits on the beach, where they leave coconut husks to soften for months before pounding, cleaning, and drying the fiber for spinning.
Here, in Kadabaddegama and Gurubewila in southern Sri Lanka, Many of the women have been coir workers since childhood, like their mothers before them. But when the tsunami surged across the coast of Sri Lanka in December 2004, the coir industry came to a standstill. Coir workers were killed, mills were destroyed, and owners abandoned their damaged pits.
“Before the tsunami, everyone in the village was engaged in the coir industry,” said J.R. Mallika, who spins coir yarn for a living. “After the tsunami, no one was interested in it any more.”
Oxfam's response
In an effort to help tsunami survivors restore their incomes, Oxfam helped repair damaged mills, paid wages to villagers while they restored the coir pits, provided spinning wheels to replace those that were destroyed, and helped spinners buy fiber and quickly return to work.
“If Oxfam had not intervened at that time, the coir industry would have been no more,” said O.G. Padmini. But the industry is a troubled one: despite all their skills and hard work, coir workers earn little for their labor.
“We each spin about 50 skeins of yarn a day,” said Mallika, “twenty-five in the morning and 25 in the evening.” Each skein sells for less than the equivalent of 15 US cents. These people are living in extreme poverty. Yet when asked what other opportunities exist for women in this area, they reply, “just coir.”
As the emergency phase of the tsunami response drew to a close at the end of 2005, Oxfam turned its attention to helping coir workers in southern Sri Lanka raise their incomes above pre-tsunami levels.
“We realized that simply restoring the industry to its former state wouldn't help us achieve our goal of helping the poorest tsunami survivors improve their standard of living,” said Vinisius Fernando, coir program officer for Matara District. “But before we could improve the industry, we needed to understand it better.”
Oxfam commissioned a coir market analysis, and then a more in-depth research study to analyze the supply chain and recommend ways to make the industry more sustainable and more profitable to workers at the bottom of that chain.
“The current system works to keep the poor poor. They receive small compensation for their labor,” says Upali Wickramasinghe, professor of economics at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and one of a three-member team from the National Institute of Business Management (NIBM) that led the research effort.
With the NIBM study in hand, Oxfam program staff developed a five-year plan to help coir workers in the south wield greater power in the marketplace. Self-help groups, in which women join together to buy raw materials and sell their products, play a central role.
“Before the tsunami, if we asked for 12 rupees (around 12 US cents) for one skein, the trader would say ”˜No. I can only give you five',” said coir worker P.D. Violet. “Now that we are in a group, we are confident and can get whatever price we name.”
Developing new technology
The study pointed to the importance of introducing new technology to keep the industry competitive. With the help of an industrial engineer and a local craftsman, Oxfam designed and produced motorized spinning wheels for these women; plans are now underway to help 30 self-help groups purchase the new machines.
The research report also recommended that coir workers add more value to their products before selling them. Training and pilot programs are now being planned, and within a few months, many of the women who now spin coir may also be making finished coir products like door mats, brooms, and sacks for collecting tea leaves.
Thanks to early rehabilitation efforts and the women's self-help groups, some coir workers in these villages are already earning more than they did before the tsunami. There is strong camaraderie among the women and, with new technology and products on the horizon, a sense of hope that their economic futures may be brighter than their pasts.
“Now we can bargain and sell our products and get a better price,” said O.G. Padmini. “Our unity is stronger now than before. We have become a kind of family.”
