INTERVIEW
With Support from the Gwangju Foundation for Women & Family, Women’s Cooperative from Myanmar Visits Gwangju
On September 22, a women’s cooperative from Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, visited the Women- and Family-friendly Village in Gwangju to learn skills related to operating a sewing machine, making and selling products, and running an organization. Han Ju Youn, a manager of the Gender Equality and Culture Team at the Gwangju Foundation for Women & Family, spent time with the members of the cooperative during the entirety of their trip. I met with Han to discuss the significance of their visit.
Hello. First of all, please introduce the Gwangju Foundation for Women & Family to the readers of the ASEAN Culture House Monthly.
The Gwangju Foundation for Women & Family was established in 2011 to create a gender-equal community and is the only organization in the region specializing in women and family policy. Our work involves research, policy development, and education, as well as a wide range of projects to promote a culture of gender equality.
Recently, a women’s cooperative from Myanmar visited Gwangju to learn handicraft skills and gain know-how related to running a social enterprise. I heard that the Foundation played a significant role during this visit.
One of the projects carried out by the Foundation is the Women- and Family-friendly Village. The Village has had a relationship with the members of the Myanmar women’s cooperative for years now. We realized that a lot of their work, such as making fabric products, requires sewing skills, which happens to be exactly what the Village’s projects involve. The Village was in a position to provide the skills and knowledge that the cooperative members needed to learn. That’s why we matched the two groups.
I imagine their visit to Gwangju was significant for multiple reasons.
Many people think that international solidarity should be realized at the level of governments and central institutions, but I think this visit was significant as it proved that there are multiple things that local-to-local international solidarity can accomplish. It’s meaningful that these women from Myanmar are building a basis for their own self-reliance, and it’s also quite significant in that the members of the Village seem to have gained a sense of pride by providing practical help to women in other countries through this meeting.
Do you have any special memories from this program?
The women from Myanmar wanted to learn how to make pressed flowers. Since the chemicals needed for pressed flowers are easily available in Korea but not in Myanmar, our instructor at the Village taught the old-fashioned method of making pressed flowers using newspapers instead of chemicals. I still remember how much the women enjoyed that method and how they actually found it helpful.
Does your organization plan to continue its exchange with the women’s cooperative in Myanmar?
We’ve decided to keep in touch with the cooperative via Zoom. We’ll hold Zoom meetings to discuss progress and other things, and should we continue to maintain contact with them in this way, perhaps one day we could go to Myanmar and learn something too.
KOREA FOUNDATION
