AKABA Ltd. Design Co. seeks to not just promote indigenous peoples’ culture but also help alleviate poverty by promoting loom-weaving. Forty-year-old Liwayway Caparas from Ilocos Norte is witness to the noble work that the two-year-old Filipino travel bag and accessories brand is undertaking, being one of the 102 weavers from across the Philippines that AKABA has taken into its network. Before working for AKABA in 2014, Liwayway, a mother of five, was a laundrywoman and seamstress in a Gawad Kalinga village in Barangay Talingaan, Laoag City, where she and her family have been living in for some 11 years. On a good day, she gets paid P300 a day for sewing formal clothing such as ‘toga’ or academic gowns in a nearby tailoring shop plus another P350 for washing clothes of some well-off residents in the area. The income was unpredictable, however, as her sewing services were normally tapped only during graduation season and she also does not have clients who needed regular laundry services. As her husband Alfonso, 51, also did not get as much from working as a tricycle driver, their family struggled to survive each day. “It was hard to make ends meet as I had no stable source of income back then. Most of the time, I could not provide my kids’ pocket money or even packed snacks. We were really in a terrible situation before,” she said in Filipino. This tough situation compelled her to take a chance at working abroad as a domestic helper Read More …
