On International Women’s Day March 8th, 2022
“Bincang-bincang Bhineka Tunggal Ika of The Indonesian Diaspora Network The Netherlands” invites you to attend and to celebrate together: The International Women’s and learn more about history and tradition of Batak Textile and listen to the story of Uli, who grew up in a family of weavers.
2022 On International Women day
On this special day Sandra Niessen*, will talk about one bridge to Indonesia, the one that she is standing on, and she would like to welcome you to join her on this bridge.
The bridge is about sharing and complementarity, when we are one, a bridge will no longer be necessary.
“We are about women throughout the world, engaged in the common goal of empowerment”.
During her presentation, Sandra will take you through the history of Woman’s Day and this year’s theme: gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow. A recognition that we can only achieve our sustainability goals when we acknowledge the key role that women play.
Where financial support is shown, women thrive. They are important agents of change and innovators, and they can affect change throughout society.
This is a theme of her talk today where Sandra gradually comes to the story of Uli Panggabean and her story is worth hearing for several reasons.
This story is also about Uli, mother of a daughter, who returned to her village after her mariage had ended. To make a living, Uli started to weave again; it made her mother sad because it meant poverty.
Uli learned the hardships of weaving: unpredictability of price of yarn and of the selling price of a cloth. She loves her art and visits people to obtain more information so that she would grow in her art. She is learning that so much has been lost and wants to recover it.However, her dream and ambition are thwarted by not having a piece of land where she can grow dye plants and cotton. She is very poor, scarcely makes enough to survive and the pandemic has made life even harder.
Sandra knows that the art can only survive if a weaver takes on the task. Now she met Uli she believes in her talents and Uli can accomplish important things.
During the presentation there is also a video of the conversation in which Uli talks about her circumstances and her dreams.
Auction of some collectable Batak Textile
After the video there will be an auction to raise some money for a small piece of land where Uli can independently grow natural dye plants.
Sandra hopes that here in The Netherlands, we will be able to pull together the means for Uli.
“We are currently in a war that is teaching us that we need to get off our dependence on fossil fuels as soon as possible. Also our clothing has to get off that dependency.
If we support Uli, we support the general, global ambition to wean ourselves off oil and gas”.
Join us
Zoom ID: 893 6852 6737
Passcode: idnnl
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89368526737?pwd=bjNsSDZleUplWGVnbVkyVXVGTlVwZz09
*Sandra Niessen, anthropologist (PhD 1985), has researched Batak weaving (North Sumatra, Indonesia) since 1978, resulting in four books, a film, and numerous articles as well as activism to encourage the tradition. She was assistant professor in the Department of Human Ecology, University of Alberta, Canada (1989–2004) and is a Steering Committee member of the Research Collective for Decolonizing Fashion.
