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This Social Enterprise of Weavers in a Thai Hill Tribe Lifts the Whole Community

When Christian missionaries Gene and Mary Long moved to Thailand in 1978, they were tasked with supporting a hill tribe in transition. The…

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Sarah Stankorb

By  Sarah Stankorb
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When missionaries-turned-tribal-advocates Gene and Mary Long moved to Thailand in 1978, they were initially tasked with supporting a hill tribe in transition. The Mlabri (or “Yellow Leaf”) people had lived an almost perfect jungle existence with limited interaction with outsiders. The Longs arrived, along with their toddler son Allen, at a time when deforestation was slashing back thousands of acres annually—soon there would not be enough jungle terrain for the Mlabri to continue hunting and gathering. Allen (Udom) Long came of age in close contact with the Mlabri and observed what happens to a shrinking culture as their home turf disappears. “The Mlabri had no place to hide, in a very real sense,” Long told me.
Northern Thai farmers and other hill tribes, including the Hmong, moved into the area. While cultural precepts demanded the Mlabri could not become farmers themselves, they could farm for others for wages. Theirs became an odd amalgam of new experiences—Allen’s father introduced the Mlabri to mirrors, something they’d never before encountered. Modern inventions attracted them—flashlights, radios, lighters. Long explains that the community “didn’t understand the market value of the products they wanted.” Laboring for Thai and Hmong farmers, some Mlabri would work half a year to earn a flashlight. Some naively became linked with drug trafficking. Slash-and-burn agriculture using dangerous chemicals, at abusively low wages, became their means of survival.

The Long family experimented with various forms of product-development with the Mlabri, attempting to use traditional skills to create products with appeal to fair-trade shoppers and tourists. Rather than making computer chips or iPhones, Long explained, the goal was to find a product over which the Mlabri already had ownership. They began making hammocks, which offered modest sales in-country at a smattering of Thai tourist shops. “For years I tried getting into the U.S. market with these hammocks,” says Long. He tried eBay, contacting retailers. He’d all but given up on breaking into the American market when a 26-year-old backpacker named Joe Demin showed up in the village. He’d stumbled upon a hammock at a resort and took an impetuous journey to the Mlabri that would mark the start of a growing lifestyle brand, Yellow Leaf Hammocks.
In the years since, the startup grew into a social enterprise that supports the work of 110 weavers, who can earn 650 percent more making hammocks than they did in slash-and-burn agriculture—or as much as a college-educated teacher. Demin says they’re now able to afford uniforms and shoes for their children. “Every child of a weaver goes to school,” he says.
Yet Yellow Leaf struggled with many of the same challenges that face startups—such as lack of capital to establish ready inventory. “We never had capital to guarantee fulltime work beyond a single hammock order,” Demin says. During times of heavy orders, the weavers could count on work, but when demand ran low, they still were turning back to slash-and-burn agriculture.
For Yellow Leaf Hammocks, loyalty to the Mlabri was paramount, and early on the company was hesitant to dip into venture capital (and any strings that may come attached). Fortunately, at the time that it became clear that the Mlabri were in need of more predictable income, and that the company needed steady inventory to get product to customers faster, Yellow Leaf was invited by Kiva to participate in its new Experimental Partnership Program (an extension of the popular microfinancing program into the social enterprise sphere that now includes 30 partners, and is set to grow).
When I asked Jason Riggs, director of communications at Kiva, by email what prompted the fundraising site’s move to include for-profit social enterprises, he explained: “‘For-profit’ means that they have a business model that aims to be self-sustaining and that can eventually attract regular market capital.” Kiva’s patient and risk-tolerant capital can help prove the viability of such models, and Kiva lenders are willing to support these organizations so long as they see a strong social impact. “The hope is that Kiva can help quantify their risk profiles and make it easier for regular investors to work with them.”
Through the Kiva loan program, Yellow Leaf began piloting a program whereby a Mlabri weaver might have up to six months of work crowdfunded through a Kiva loan, at zero percent interest. Long went from family to family within the community totaling more than 300 people, explaining the potential of the program. “The Mlabri were skeptical,” says Long. They were wary of loan sharks. “They took several different angles of cross examination, which I was thrilled about.” For a community so exploited for decades, caution was wise. In the end, nine weavers from each of the major families signed on to pilot the loan program, and will repay their loans (usually over nine months) through hammock sales. Other weavers can still work under the old model, being paid per hammock made.
The Kiva loan program marks a milestone for Yellow Leaf Hammocks and the Mlabri. There’s been talk among the Mlabri about what to do with the profits—improved housing, maybe a television. One weaver has been considering buying a telephone. “When I pointed out I didn’t know who he’d call,” Long says of that particular weaver, “he kind of smiled.”
But having a chunk of cash to manage over time—which offers freedom and the ability to plan for the future—also means learning to manage finances, banking. Sharing your abundance is of the upmost importance to the Mlabri, who once hunted and gathered to support the collective; personal banking seems to run contrary to that. Even a decade ago, everything needed to be shared. Long told me that if someone bought five eggs, for example, they had to share them with everyone in the village. “It would take forever and everybody would get a little piece,” he says. Banking is yet another transition to navigate.
For Yellow Leaf Hammocks, and with the added benefits of the Kiva loans, the emphasis is on empowering the Mlabri to live their lives as they see fit—without exploitation, without the environmental and health risks associated with slash-and-burn agriculture. It’s a tricky mix of using modern economic structures to support a traditional way of life. The weavers determine how much work they need to put in to support their lifestyles. (“Full-time” means something different to the Mlabri, who with steady income, save time for traditional activities.) It’s a formal structure that lets the Mlabri decide when and how they want to work. It’s far from the exploitation they experienced in the past. As Riggs puts it, “by providing flexible income activities, the Mlabri are better empowered to make their own decisions as to how their culture and society should develop and adapt.”
Images courtesy of Yellow Leaf Hammocks
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    Foreign aid’s hidden benefit: Recipients are more likely to pay the generosity forward

    Aid can spark goodwill beyond borders.

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    Foreign aid may not improve how recipients view donor countries – but it can set off a chain of goodwill that spreads far beyond the original act of giving.

    That is what a colleague and I found when we studied how South Koreans responded to COVID-19 vaccines donated by the United States.

    The South Korean government reserved donated Johnson & Johnson vaccines for military reservists and, for medical reasons, excluded anyone under 30. As a result, we could compare the views of South Koreans just above and below that threshold.

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    This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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    Memory is not a camera.

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    Your memory doesn’t record, it reconstructs

    As a memory researcher, I understand that belief in photographic memory is common and the idea is compelling. But it is simply wrong.

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    Rather, you reconstruct the past by piecing together the remnants of experience available to you in the moment of recollection. It’s a process shaped by a range of factors, including the search cues you use; your present knowledge, attitudes and goals; and your current state of mind or mood.

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    You may recognize this experience. It has become so common that it is often accepted as the norm in modern professional life. Yet this persistent state of activation carries consequences for physical health, especially for people prone to headaches.

    As a board-certified neurologist who specializes in headache medicine, I see a lot of patients whose pain increases from the high-pressure work culture prevalent today. While it might seem beyond your control, there are some steps you can take.

    Stress and the nervous system

    Stress is not inherently harmful. In fact, when experienced in short bursts, stress can be beneficial by increasing focus, improving performance and preparing the body to handle challenges. However, problems arise when stress becomes chronic and relentless.

    The nervous system perceives and processes both stress and pain. Built to be highly adaptable, it continually responds to internal signals and external factors, constantly recalibrating to maintain balance. When the brain continuously perceives ongoing demands without adequate recovery, it keeps the body in a prolonged state of alertness.

    During these periods of ongoing stress, hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline remain persistently elevated. In this sensitized state, signals that would typically be ignored or interpreted as minor can start to feel much more intense.

    This state leads to an increase in heart rate and sustained muscle tension, with the nervous system transitioning into continuous fight or flight mode. In the context of headaches, this sensitization can lower the threshold for pain, making it easier for a headache to start and harder for it to stop.

    Over time, this constant activation can disrupt the body’s natural balance and create an environment for headache disorders to develop or worsen.

    Chronic stress acts as both a trigger and an exacerbating factor for migraines. The neurological system of people who experience migraines is comparatively more responsive to environmental changes, including variations in sleep patterns, the environment, hormonal fluctuations and stress intensity.

    This means that persistent exposure to stress may drive up frequency and severity of migraine episodes. In addition, muscle tension in the neck, shoulders and scalp – a frequent effect of stress – can cause tension headaches, too.

    Extended periods of sitting, sustained concentration and physical tension during the workday can contribute to the development of tension headaches in the later hours of the day.

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    The role of sleep

    Chronic stress can also have a profound impact on sleep quality. Many people who feel persistently wired at the end of the workday struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep. That fitful sleep may lack the restorative qualities necessary for recovery.

    Poor sleep can, in turn, perpetuate the stress cycle, leaving the brain further sensitized and increasing the likelihood of headaches the following day. This loop can be difficult to break, as fatigue reduces resilience and amplifies the sense of being overwhelmed that comes with stress.

    In addition to affecting sleep, chronic stress impairs concentration and cognitive function. When the brain remains in a state of constant vigilance, scanning for demands and threats, it becomes harder to focus, be creative and solve problems. As a result, productivity declines, errors become more frequent and frustration mounts, adding to the overall stress burden.

    Headaches that occur alongside these cognitive challenges can further disrupt daily life, making even routine tasks feel difficult.

    Managing work stress

    Understanding the connection between stress and the nervous system points to some steps you can take to shift the nervous system out of its constantly activated state. You’ll never eliminate stress entirely – that’s neither realistic nor necessary. But it is possible to create intentional space for the body to reset:

    Small, consistent strategies that address both biological and lifestyle causes of headaches can minimize the effects of chronic stress and encourage nervous system regulation. Over time, these strategies can gradually reduce headache frequency and severity, improving overall quality of life.

    This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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