27/01/2023
When your vacation will consist of looking for "Bubbles of humanity".
Do you know the Akha tribe? An ethnic group scattered all around the golden triangle of Southeast Asia. An ethnic group whose visual identity cannot be forgotten. Massive silver headdresses and colorful embroideries decorating from bottom to top their indigo-colored costume.
As you probably know, these minorities (among many others) do not have equal access to knowledge, services and especially to a decent income as people born in Bangkok or Paris.
Being at the bottom of the value chain, they can only earn a few euros at the cost of a job that no Westerner could accept ......so I say yes to the Akha Yellow Vests!
Without having to block the hills, with buffaloes, we do "our part" as Pierre Rabhi would say. The fact is that the Akha are part of the DNA of Nitanan and Macrame by Nicha, its co-founder being Akha herself. So we have a privileged access to these villages.
We are in the process of setting up our second workshop in a small village 30 minutes away from Chiang Rai (North of Thailand) and our ambition is to transfer our main production pole there this year.
Today, 2 to 6 Akha women work with us depending on the season.
We do amazing things with them for Christmas and Thai Mother's Day and they support us on the big projects. Yes, the manual skill is a heritage of this people and this know-how is simply underestimated.
Our ambitions in 2023 are as follows:
- Hire 3 full-time Akha women at the same rate as our team in Bangkok.
- To open a real factory (including a little bamboo museum).
- Organize the first Hilltribe Christmas Festival.
- Invite you to the Christmas parties!🤶🥳
So why am I talking about your vacation in the title of this article? Here we go (we save the best for last).
We have a vision for these villages. We have a vision of an extreme polarity between cities driven by technology, AI, consumerism and productivism VS off-grid villages living by organic farming, where craftsmanship is restored and where you can fall asleep to the sound of the rivers.
After months of hyper-connected work, punctuated by the colors of your schedule and the unbreakable metronome of the cities, what else would you want to do but disconnect digitally, pick your own meal from the garden, and fall asleep to the sound of a river?
And more than that,
the future of these villages, the sustainability of their cultural heritage will depend on the creation of these "bubbles of humanity".
Welcome to the new world where acts of humanity will be expressed in the strongest possible way to counter a world with too much greed.
Pre-orders for 2025 Airbnb are now open!
A big thank you to the Central Pattana (CPN), Central Department Store Group, which appreciates and supports us in these endeavors, to THAILAND , to Nicolas Vivin, and to all the private clients who are sensitive to this cause.
And there will be many more surprises to come very soon. Stay tuned!
