HELLO!
With the launch of our website, we would like to take the time to introduce ourselves to all of you.
We are Maldives Authentic Crafts Cooperative Society, or ‘MACCS’ for short. We are a group of 10 women who have worked together for the past 10+ years to help revive the local, authentic handicraft industry here in the Maldives.
The current members of MACCS
Most of us grew up with some knowledge of the crafts of our ancestors. Whether it was practiced in our own homes or introduced through school, the members of MACCS all share a love for the crafts and the culture associated with it. But sadly, we have witnessed the decline in our beloved crafts with the rapid development of the country over the past 40 or so years. The items such as roanu (coir rope), kunaa (reed mat) or libaas (traditional dress) were replaced with items befitting the new millenia, creating a decrease in the demand for both the crafts and those who make them.
With the rise of tourism we observed the souvenir industry boom, without enough craftspeople and slower production times, our traditional crafts were taken abroad to be mass manufactured for a fraction of the cost and sold to unsuspecting tourists as the real deal. It was this reduction of our cultural crafts to nothing more than cheap, imported, counter-fit souvenirs and the loss of these generational skills that was the birth of MACCS in 2011.
Our first big event was a stall of locally made products at the SAARC summit held in Addu City in 2012. We have gone on to do a number of fairs, both nationally and internationally, as well as run courses to teach and revive handicrafts that are on the verge of being lost. With crafting being so closely linked to the environment we live in, MACCS have branched out into different avenues, taking on projects with environmental impacts on local ecosystems such as beaches and mangroves as well as waste and single use plastic management.
Now here we are, over a decade later with a number of achievements under our belt and a lot of lessons learned along the way. We are extremely proud of how far we have come and are excited for what is to come. We hope you tune in, every once in a while, to see what we are up to here on our blog. We assure you we have a lot of fun stuff planned for this space. Till next time!
Vedhun Salaam!
Team MACCS
