In 2023, the Samdhana team in Mekong worked with the Che Su Mo Women Group in Huay Eh Khang village in Mae Win, a  sub-district of Mae Wang in Chiangmai, Thailand. They had sought Samdhana’s support to improve their branding and marketing capacity for their woven products.

The Che Su Mo Women group is led by Pi Noraeri Thungmueangthong, a village chief and one of the prominent leaders in the Indigenous Women’s Network of Thailand (IWNT). They were organized in 2013 with the initial support by the government’s funding for community enterprise. They were registered only in 2021. The group currently has 17 members; only one new member joined the original 16 at its founding. 

During the project period, the Samdhana Mekong team was able to join the training on weaving and natural dying. They also visited the forest area being managed by the women, as well as the community forest where they collect non-timber forest products such as tree barks, leaves, roots and flowers for natural dying. 

The development of the Che Su Mo weaving group is not only for income generation but also for the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge on weaving and environmental conservation. 

Apart from the weaving group, there is another group working on herbal medicines. The two initiatives become a way to empower women to come together and build unity among them. Moreover, they generate income while revitalizing traditional knowledge on weaving, their culture, and their relationship with nature which has been diminishing and weakening in many Indigenous communities in Thailand. These activities have importantly become a learning process for the younger generation. 

Connecting weaving, herbal medicine development and environmental conservation is a good way to raise the awareness of the people, and to strengthen the conservation work of the community. They collect the bark of trees, leaves, fruits, roots for natural dying and herbal plants. In this process, they raise the awareness of the youth about the relationship between people, culture, forest and the importance of protecting nature to maintain their way of life. The entire initiative has also become a good way to bring young people back home and invest their knowledge to community development. 

At the beginning of 2024, they started a community market which opens every Saturday evening in the village. They sell community products, not limited to weaving and herbal medicines.