Kathmandu Make and Trade "HeavenHemp" Revenue

About Kathmandu Make and Trade "HeavenHemp"

Hemp is a wonderful resource and indigenous to Nepal. Cannabis sativa, subsp. indica grows wild in the hills of Nepal from east to west, and has been harvested and used for cloth (as well as for food, fuel and medicine) around the Himalayan farmstead for generations, providing strong fabric for sacks, clothes, bags and ropes. Farming families traditionally make hemp yarn and weave hemp fabric in quiet periods in the farming year. If they are able to sell some of this yarn and cloth they can make a much-needed cash income. We want to be able to support these families in this traditional occupation by using Wild Nepali Hemp for all our accessories, buying rolls of hemp from the farmers for a fair price every season. We also aim to use Nepali Hemp for clothing as well as for accessories. Our aim is to find a low-cost way of spinning Nepali hemp into fine thread while giving as much employment as possible. We also use Chinese hemp to spin fabric for our clothes. We mix this with organic cotton, nettle, bamboo and even banana fibre for unique and natural products. Other natural fibres we use are jute, silk, recycled silk and lokta (for paper). Our Workshop: We employ five permanent staff who are paid above-average wages. When we have a larger order we hire staff on a temporary basis. We have good links with both tailors from the Muslim community and those from the Tarai and have a regular roster of tailors who return to us year after year. We hope to be able to give work this year to the Tarai tailors since many of them are being affected by the on-going floods in Saptari district. We also contract out work to groups of women knitters and women skilled in crochet: these women work from home on a piece-work basis and are thus able to top up their income without having to leave their children. Our recent addition of three handlooms means that we can hire local weavers, who are paid per metre for their work.

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