Joyce crafts woollen bilums to meet demand

By LULU MAGINDE
JOYCE Rema, from Ponowi village, Southern Highlands, has found her niche crafting woollen Wosera-Gawi patterned bilums (bags) after seeing demand rise for them.
She even managed to sell them at craft markets.
Along with her cousins Heni and Helen Pake, she has been selling bilums from all over Southern Highlands, baskets from Ialibu and the wool bilums crafted by herself at craft markets since 2018.
“I see a lot of women carrying around Sepik bilums so I could see a demand for them, then I had the idea to make it with wool instead of natural fibres like they do in East Sepik,” Rema said.
The 34-year-old mother of one has been in the business of selling baskets from Ialibu since 1997, originally helping her parents out by selling baskets and bilums from her village at the Boroko Craft Market.
After failing to secure a spot in grade eight, she came to the capital in 2002 and made a living selling buai and cigarettes at buai markets until she was able to save up enough to buy a little space at Manu to build her home.
While she does not have a definite number of bilums that she has made and sold, she did mention that most of her bilums were sold out by the end of the day, wherever she happens to be selling them.
“I don’t make all the bilums myself, some of them are collected by Heni, from the women who makes them in the province and are brought down to be sold here,” Rema said.
“She collects the Ialibu baskets from the station, and then makes her way down to Mt Hagen, collecting bilums made by the women from villages along the way, for example from Kaupena, Walum and even as far as Mendi road,” she added.
“All the Ialibu baskets you see on display here are from my village, unlike the ones that are sold at the Boroko markets which are bought in bulk by the seller from a distributor and then sold at a higher retail price.