Kommaly Chanthavong Nominee for 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.

“We strengthen the position of women by giving them a dependable income and thus improving the chances of their children."

Kommaly Chanthavong (born 1950) is a farmer’s daughter from the mountains of eastern Laos. When her village was bombed by the Americans in 1961, she fled to Vientiane. In 1976, she founded a cooperative for the production of silk, which she still heads. The cooperative teaches mostly women traditional skills in raising silkworms, making natural dyes and weaving traditional patterns. The successful marketing of the products provides a fair and steady income to several hundred families that used to be very poor.

You can read more on Kommaly’s story at Phontong Handicraft Cooperative.